 On August 1, 1865, former Jefferson president Robert Jefferson Breckinridge was asked to take the presidency, an offer he formally declined that December, due to failing health and the effects from the assassination of his close friend, Abraham Lincoln.The union of the two colleges, one appealing largely to southern students and the other staunchly abolitionist, was sealed just as the Union was preserved.Jonathan Edwards, a pastor from Baltimore who had been president of Hanover College was elected the first president of Washington & Jefferson College on April 4, 1866.