University of Mississippi

On November 6, 1848, the university, offering a classical curriculum, opened to its first class of 80 students, most of whom were children of elite slaveholders, all of whom were white, and all but one of whom were from Mississippi. For 23 years, the university was Mississippi's only public institution of higher learning, and for 110 years, its only comprehensive university. In 1854, the University of Mississippi School of Law was established, becoming the fourth state-supported law school in the United States.
Early president Frederick A. P. Barnard sought to increase the stature of the university, placing him in conflict with the more conservative board of trustees. His hundred-page 1858 report to the trustees on his proposals resulted in little besides the university head's title being changed to "chancellor". Barnard's northern background—he was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Yale—and Union sympathies resulted in heightened tensions: a student assaulted his slave and the state legislature investigated …