Union-Philanthropic Society

UPLS History

The Society

The Union-Philanthropic Literary Society is the second-oldest literary society in the United States, with a history dating back to the founding of the Union Society in 1789, a week before the signing of the U.S. Bill of Rights, and the Philanthropic Society in 1805 - making it the oldest student organization at Hampden-Sydney, itself America's tenth-oldest College. The Union and Philanthropic societies combined in 1929 to form the present association. For over two hundred years, the Society has preserved its traditions of thoughtful discourse, friendship, and honor.

In the Society's lifetime, many famous men have been members, including General Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis; Presidents James Madison, William Henry Harrison (himself formerly a student at Hampden-Sydney), John Tyler, James Buchanan, and Franklin Pierce; writers Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Makepeace Thackeray, Edgar Allan Poe, and George Will; politicians Patrick Henry, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas, Adlai Stevenson, and Tip O'Neill; and King Louis Philippe of France.

Regalia

The Union-Philanthropic Society's regalia is taken from the Union Society (1789) and the Philanthropic Society (1805):

Union Society

Motto: Me Socium Summis Adjungere Rebus

Philanthropic Society

Motto: Aude Sapere

The Preamble to the Constitution of the Union-Philanthropic Society (2007)

Derived from the Philanthropic Society Constitution (1815)

Freedom of discussion on every subject is one of those rights, the security of which distinguishes our government. It was bought with precious blood, and while its enjoyment is a privilege, dear to freemen, its exercise, in everything relating to his country, becomes the sacred duty of every patriot. Every American youth, therefore, and particulary every one whose advantages for a liberal education give his country claim to his future services should early accustom himself to its exercise. This, during the interesting period passed by the student at a public institution, is attended by eminent advantages--it alleviates the drudgery of study, facilitates the acquisition of knowledge to various other useful subjects, quickens the operations of the mind, give its subtlety in the arrangement of argument, sagacity in the detection of sophistry, and promptness in the calling up and arrangement of its resources under any circumstances and upon any emergency--in short, it is one of the most effectual means of preparing a man to fill with honor any station to which he is liable to be called. Impressed with the importance of these considerations, and desirous at the same time of connecting the means of improvement in this and in other pursuits of a similar nature with the promotion among themselves of knowledge, virtue, and friendship, a number of students of Hampden-Sydney College having, with the permission of the President thereof, formed themselves into a society for the above purposes, do adopt for its regulation the following Constitution.