The Founding Fathers
Dickinson,
"Penman of the Revolution," was born in 1732 at Crosiadore
estate, near the village of Trappe in Talbot County, MD. He was the
second son of Samuel Dickinson, the prosperous farmer, and his second
wife, Mary (Cadwalader) Dickinson. In 1740 the family moved to Kent
County near Dover, DE., where private tutors educated the youth. In
1750 he began to study law with John Moland in Philadelphia. In 1753
Dickinson went to England to continue his studies at London's Middle
Temple. Four years later, he returned to Philadelphia and became a
prominent lawyer there. In 1770 he married Mary Norris, daughter of a
wealthy merchant. The couple had at least one daughter.
By that time, Dickinson's superior education
and talents had propelled him into politics. In 1760 he had served in
the assembly of the Three Lower Counties (Delaware), where he held the
speakership. Combining his Pennsylvania and Delaware careers in 1762,
he won a seat as a Philadelphia member in the Pennsylvania assembly
and sat there again in 1764. He became the leader of the conservative
side in the colony's political battles. His defense of the proprietary
governor against the faction led by Benjamin
Franklin hurt his popularity but earned him respect for his
integrity. Nevertheless, as an immediate consequence, he lost his
legislative seat in 1764.
Meantime, the struggle between the colonies
and the mother country had waxed strong and Dickinson had emerged in
the forefront of Revolutionary thinkers. In the debates over the Stamp
Act (1765), he played a key part. That year, he wrote The Late
Regulations Respecting the British Colonies . . . Considered, an
influential pamphlet that urged Americans to seek repeal of the act by
pressuring British merchants. Accordingly, the Pennsylvania
legislature appointed him as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress,
whose resolutions he drafted.
In 1767-68 Dickinson wrote a series of
newspaper articles in the Pennsylvania Chronicle that came to be known
collectively as Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. They attacked
British taxation policy and urged resistance to unjust laws, but also
emphasized the possibility of a peaceful resolution. So popular were
the Letters in the colonies that Dickinson received an honorary LL.D.
from the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and public thanks
from a meeting in Boston. In 1768, responding to the Townshend Duties,
he championed rigorous colonial resistance in the form of
nonimportation and nonexportation agreements.
In 1771, Dickinson returned to the
Pennsylvania legislature and drafted a petition to the king that was
unanimously approved. Because of his continued opposition to the use
of force, however, he lost much of his popularity by 1774. He
particularly resented the tactics of New England leaders in that year
and refused to support aid requested by Boston in the wake of the Intolerable
Acts, though he sympathized with the city's plight. Reluctantly,
Dickinson was drawn into the Revolutionary fray. In 1774 he chaired
the Philadelphia committee of correspondence and briefly sat in the First
Continental Congress as a representative from Pennsylvania.
Throughout 1775, Dickinson supported the Whig
cause, but continued to work for peace. He drew up petitions asking
the king for redress of grievances. At the same time, he chaired a
Philadelphia committee of safety and defense and held a colonelcy in
the first battalion recruited in Philadelphia to defend the city.
After Lexington
and Concord, Dickinson continued to hope for a peaceful solution.
In the Second Continental
Congress (1775-76), still a representative of Pennsylvania, he
drew up them Declaration of the
Causes of Taking Up Arms. In the Pennsylvania assembly, he
drafted an authorization to send delegates to Congress in 1776. It
directed them to seek redress of grievances, but ordered them to
oppose separation of the colonies from Britain.
By that time, Dickinson's moderate position
had left him in the minority. In Congress he voted against the Declaration
of Independence (1776) and refused to sign it. Nevertheless, he
then became one of only two contemporary congressional members (with
Thomas McKean) who entered the military. When he was not reelected he
resigned his brigadier general's commission and withdrew to his estate
in Delaware. Later in 1776, though reelected to Congress by his new
constituency, he declined to serve and also resigned from the
Pennsylvania Assembly. He may have taken part in the Battle
of Brandywine, PA (September 11, 1777), as a private in a special
Delaware force but otherwise saw no further military action.
Dickinson came out of retirement to take a
seat in the Continental Congress (1779-80), where he signed the Articles
of Confederation; earlier he had headed the committee that had
drafted them. In 1781 he became president of Delaware's Supreme
Executive Council. Shortly thereafter, he moved back to Philadelphia.
There, he became president of Pennsylvania (1782-85). In 1786,
representing Delaware, he attended and chaired the Annapolis
Convention.
The next year, Delaware sent Dickinson to the
Constitutional Convention.
He missed a number of sessions and left early because of illness, but
he made worthwhile contributions, including service on the Committee
on Postponed Matters. Although he resented the forcefulness of Madison
and the other nationalists, he helped engineer the Great
Compromise and wrote public letters supporting constitutional
ratification. Because of his premature departure from the convention,
he did not actually sign the Constitution but authorized his friend
and fellow-delegate George Read to do so
for him.
Dickinson lived for two decades more but held
no public offices. Instead, he devoted himself to writing on politics
and in 1801 published two
volumes of his collected works. He died at Wilmington in 1808 at
the age of 75 and was entombed in the Friends Burial Ground.
Image: Courtesy
of Independence National Historical Park
