Honorary Degree
In 1790, the Trustees of the College granted Lafayette an honorary degree for his services in America during the Revolutionary War. As he had returned to France by that time, the degree was awarded in absentia.
Resolved that the degree of Doctor of Laws be conferred on Mr. Necker late financier of France - on Mr. La Fayette, on David Hume Esq professor of scotch law in the University of Edinburgh, on John Robison professor of nat. Philosophy in the same university, & on James Kinsey Esq Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey -
It was not until his American grand tour in 1824 that Lafayette was able to receive the diploma in person. In September of that year, Lafayette reached Princeton where he was met with scores of local townspeople lining up to greet him. In his honor, the college erected a “Temple of Science” in front of Nassau Hall decorated with a celebrated portrait of General George Washington, painted by Charles Wilson Peale.
It was inside the temple where Richard Stockton (son of Richard Stockton, signer of the Declaration of Independence) gave an address. President James Carnahan then delivered his own short speech (available here) and awarded Lafayette with the doctor-of-law diploma signed in 1790 by John Witherspoon.
While Lafayette's honorary LL.D. was not located for this exhibition (it is not housed at Princeton University), the University Archives holds an honorary LL.D. confered upon James Madison in the year 1787, the ninth year of Witherspoon's presidency.
In a kind response to the events at Princeton, Lafayette praised the college in an article in the New York Commercial Review (available here), lauding their “diffusing knowledge and liberal sentiment.” It was also in Princeton that Dr. Franklin’s granddaughter Mrs. Hodge gave Lafayette a breast-pin with a lock of her grandfather’s hair.