one-year courses. He began writing articles for The Providence Journal starting in 1854 and took over full responsibility for the editorial pages in 1859. After the editor and part-owner, Henry B. Anthony, was elected to the United States Senate in 1858, he proposed that Angell replace him as editor. Angell resigned his professorship in 1860 to become the full-time editor of the paper. Angell allied himself with the radical wing of the new Republican Party, and lent the paper's backing to the 1860 gubernatorial candidacy of abolitionist Republican nominee Seth Padelford, which failed when a coalition concerned about the economic effects of angering the South instead led to the election of fellow Republican William Sprague. In the presidential contest, Angell felt that Rhode Island's interests would be best served by the nomination of staunch abolitionist William H. Seward as the Republican candidate. But when the somewhat more moderate Abraham Lincoln was nominated, he put the power of the Journal behind Lincoln's candidacy, publishing favorable letters from his former pupil John Hay, who was by then working in Lincoln's law offices. In the end, Lincoln carried Rhode Island, 61.4% to 38.6%. Angell ran the Journal for the entire Civil War, and briefly considered buying it to run as a non-partisan newspaper (an idea which Senator Anthony rejected), but the workload took its toll on his health. In August 1866, when the University of Vermont requested that he come serve as its new president, he accepted the offer and moved to Burlington. University of Vermont The Civil War had depleted the University of Vermont of students and the funds that came with them. When he assumed the presidency in 1866, Angell's primary responsibility was to improve both the size of the student body and the university's finances. He oversaw the integration of a state agricultural college formed following passage of the Morrill Act in 1862, which had introduced land-grant colleges in the United States. This effort faced resistance both from classicists worried about the influence of the new college on the quality of education and from farmers who doubted the university curriculum had much to offer them, but Angell was able to build enough trust between the groups that the integration went forward, and both the finances and enrollment began to recover; the latter grew from 31 in 1866 to 67 in 1870. Angell traveled to state and county fairs around Vermont