John Spencer Bassett was an American historian. He was a professor at Duke University best known today for the Bassett Affair in 1903 when he publicly criticized racism among Southern elites, and called Booker T. Washington, "all in all the greatest man, save General Lee, born in the South in 100 years." In the face of widespread outrage, the college trustees refused to accept Bassett's resignation by a vote of 18 to 7. After Duke, he became a professor of history at Smith College in Massachusetts. and was the Executive Director of the American Historical Association for many years.
In 1902 Bassett launched the South Atlantic Quarterly, a journal whose purpose was to promote the "literary, historical, and social development of the South." It was from this journal that Bassett began to challenge more aggressively the southern press and prevailing sentiments about southern history and issues revolving around race. In October 1903 he published an article in the South Atlantic Quarterly titled "Stirring Up the Fires of Racial Antipathy" triggering a controversy that nearly cost the young professor his job. In the article, he spoke about improving race relations and gave praise to numerous African Americans. Near the end of the article, he wrote "...Booker T. Washington the greatest man, save General Lee, born in the South in a hundred years..." This led to an outpouring of anger from powerful Democratic Party leaders as well as the media and public. The most vociferous of which was the Raleigh News and Observer and its editor, Josephus Daniels. Many demanded that Bassett be fired and encouraged parents to take their children out of the university. Due to immense public pressure, Bassett offered his resignation if the Board of Trustees requested that he do so. The Board of Trustees then held a meeting to decide the fate of Bassett. In the end, they voted 18-7 not to accept the resignation citing academic freedom. In their decision, they wrote, "We are particularly unwilling to lend ourselves to any tendency to destroy or limit academic liberty, a tendency which has, within recent years, manifested itself in some conspicuous instances, and which has created a feeling of uneasiness for the welfare of American colleges We cannot lend countenance to the degrading notion that professors in American colleges have not an equal liberty of thought and speech with all other Americans." In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt commended Trinity and Bassett's courageous stand for academic freedom while speaking to the university. He told the school, "You stand for Academic Freedom, for the right of private judgment, for a duty more incumbent upon the scholar than upon any other man, to tell the truth as he sees it, to claim for himself and to give to others the largest liberty in seeking after the truth."
Post-affair career
In 1906, he became a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts. After 1919, he was the long-time secretary of the American Historical Association, and helped to stabilize its finances through an endowment. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1921. He wrote numerous books on North Carolina, a major biography of Andrew Jackson, several textbooks, and produced carefully edited editions of important primary sources, most notably his seven volume Correspondence of Andrew Jackson.
Personal life
In Forsyth, North Carolina on August 10, 1892, John Spencer Bassett married Jessie Lewellin. She was born January 31, 1866 in Clarksville, Mecklenburg County, Virginia; died April 3, 1950 in Northampton, Massachusetts. John Spencer Bassett and Jessie Lewellin Bassett are buried in the Bridge Street Cemetery, Northampton, Massachusetts. They had two children:
