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John William Burgess (August 26, 1844 – January 13, 1931) was anAmericanpolitical scientist. He spent most of his career atColumbia University where he in 1880 created the first graduate school in Political Science.[1] He has been described as "the most influential political scientist of the period"[2] and "the father of American political science."[3]
Burgess was born inCornersville, Tennessee, on August 26, 1844.[3] His father was a staunchWhig and part of the Tennesseeplanter aristocracy.[3] His family, which heldslaves, wereunionists during theAmerican Civil War, believing that slavery could more easily be maintained within a union with Northern states where the Northern states had to returnfugitive slaves to the South.[3]
He attendedCumberland University inLebanon, Tennessee, from September 1861 until February 1862 when Burgess and other students fled as theUnion army occupied parts of Tennessee.[3] In 1862, Burgess sought to avoidconscription into theConfederate States Army.[3] He escaped to Union-held territory where he was required to take an oath of allegiance to the Union.[3] Burgess subsequently entered into the Union Army in 1862 and was stationed in West Tennessee.[4]
He undertook study of history atAmherst College, graduating in 1867.[5][3] He gainedadmission to the bar in 1869.[3]
From 1869 to 1871, he was Professor of English literature and political economy atKnox College.[1]
From there he attended the universities of Göttingen, Leipzig, and Berlin over the period 1871–1873,[3][1] where he studied under scholars including the historianJohann Gustav Droysen; the economistWilhelm Roscher; the historianTheodor Mommsen, whose linking history with law strongly influenced Burgess's own approach; andRudolf von Gneist. He was much influenced by the training in research methods characteristic of German universities of the time. He sought to import these methods of research and scholarship, first to Amherst (unsuccessfully) and later to Columbia. He maintained a lifelong interest in German-American relations.
From 1873 to 1876, Burgess was Professor of History and Political Science atAmherst College.[1]
In 1876, Burgess was appointed to a professorship in the Law School of what later becameColumbia University, a post he held until his 1912 retirement. While at Columbia, Burgess taughtconstitutional law. In 1880, Burgess created the first graduate school in the discipline ofpolitical science in the United States.[3] In 1886, he founded thePolitical Science Quarterly. From 1890 until his retirement in 1912, he was Dean of the Graduate School of Political Science at Columbia.[3]
He was instrumental in establishing the Faculty of Political Science, the first major institutionalized program in the United States granting the degree ofDoctor of Philosophy. These endeavors have led to his being widely regarded as one of the founders of modernpolitical science.
In 1906, Burgess was Roosevelt professor at the University of Berlin and in the summer semester of 1907, he held a guest lecture at the University of Leipzig.[citation needed]
Burgess was a strong influence on theDunning School ofReconstruction. Burgess "agreed with the scholarly consensus that blacks were inferior",[6] and wrote that "black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind."[7]
In a 1904, Burgess argued for close British, American and German relations, justifying it in part on the basis of "ethnic affinity". He also argued that Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and the Dutch were "probably the purest Teutonic stock, and the best stock, in Europe". He added that it was a "sober truth that the Teutonic genius and the Teutonic conscience are the two greatest forces in modern civilization and culture."[8]
Burgess defended how Southern planters treated slaves, arguing that most planters treated them well and that most slaves were content with slavery.[3] Burgess criticized the 1852 novelUncle Tom's Cabin, arguing that it was "a gross exaggeration" of how most slaves were treated.[3]
Until the 1990s, he was memorialized on the Columbia campus with the designation of the "Burgess-Carpenter Classics Library" withinButler Library.Nicholas Murray Butler credited the teachings of Burgess along withAlexander Hamilton for the philosophical basis of hisRepublicanism.[9]
According to Leon Epstein, Burgess was a leading academic figure in the last decades of the nineteenth century, but some of his influence was considered negative (due to his advocation of formalism as it applied to politics and governance) and he caused somewhat of an intellectual rebellion at Columbia.[10]
He was the academic advisor ofCharles Edward Merriam.
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