Dickinson, John (bust) - NARA - 532841.tif

John Dickinson (November 13 /nowiki>Julian calendar November 2">Julian_calendar.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Julian calendar">/nowiki>Julian calendar November 2 1732Various sources indicate a birth date of November 8, 12 or 13, but his most recent biographer, Flower, offers November 2 without dispute. – February 14, 1808), a Founding Father of the United States, was an attorney and politician from Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware. Dickinson was known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his twelve '' Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania'', published individually in 1767 and 1768, and he also wrote " The Liberty Song" in 1768.

As a member of the First Continental Congress, where he signed the Continental Association, Dickinson drafted most of the 1774 Petition to the King, and then, as a member of the Second Continental Congress, he wrote the 1775 Olive Branch Petition. Both of these attempts to negotiate with King George III of Great Britain failed. Dickinson also reworked Thomas Jefferson's language to write the final draft of the 1775 Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.

While in Congress, Dickinson served on the committee that wrote the Model Treaty, a template for seeking alliances with foreign countries, but he opposed independence from Great Britain. He either abstained or was absent from the vote on the Declaration of Independence and refused to sign the document after its passage. Nevertheless, Dickinson wrote the first draft of the 1776–1777 Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and served as a militia officer during the Revolution. He later was elected president of the 1786 Annapolis Convention, which called for the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and as a delegate from Delaware, he signed the United States Constitution.

One of the wealthiest men in the British American colonies, Dickinson served as president of Delaware (1781–1783) and president of Pennsylvania (1782–1785). Upon Dickinson's death, president Jefferson referred to Dickinson as "(a)mong the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain", calling him "one of the great worthies of the revolution."

Together with his wife Mary Norris Dickinson, he is the namesake of Dickinson College, as well as of Pennsylvania State University's Dickinson School of Law and University of Delaware's Dickinson Complex. John Dickinson High School was dedicated in his honor in 1959 as part of the public school system in northern Delaware.

Family history

Dickinson was born in ''Alabama'', his family's tobacco plantation near the village of Trappe in Talbot County, Province of Maryland. He was the great-grandson of Walter Dickinson who emigrated from England to Virginia in 1654 and, having joined the Society of Friends, came with several co-religionists to Talbot County on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in 1659. There, with on the banks of the Choptank River, Walter began a plantation, ''Croisadore'', meaning "cross of gold." Walter also bought on St. Jones Neck in what became Kent County, Delaware.

''Croisadore'' passed through Walter's son, William, to his grandson, Samuel, the father of John Dickinson. Each generation increased the landholdings so that Samuel inherited on five farms in three Maryland counties; over his lifetime he increased that to . He also bought the Kent County property from his cousin and expanded it to about , stretching along the St. Jones River from Dover to the Delaware Bay. There he began another plantation and called it Poplar Hall. These plantations were large, profitable agricultural enterprises worked by slave labor, until 1777 when John Dickinson freed the enslaved of Poplar Hall.

Samuel Dickinson married Judith Troth (1689–1729) on April 11, 1710. They had nine children; William, Walter, Samuel, Elizabeth, Henry, Elizabeth "Betsy," Rebecca, and Rachel. The three eldest sons died of smallpox while in London seeking their education. Widowed, with two young children, Henry and Betsy, Samuel married Mary Cadwalader in 1731. She was the daughter of Martha Jones (granddaughter of Dr. Thomas Wynne) and the prominent Quaker John Cadwalader who was also the grandfather of General John Cadwalader of Philadelphia. Their sons, John, Thomas, and Philemon was born in the next few years.

For three generations the Dickinson family had been members of the Third Haven Friends Meeting in Talbot County, and the Cadwaladers were members of the Meeting in Philadelphia. But in 1739, John Dickinson's half-sister, Betsy, was married in an Anglican church to Charles Goldsborough in what was called a "disorderly marriage" by the Meeting. The couple would be the grandparents of Maryland Governor Charles Goldsborough.

Leaving ''Croisadore'' to elder son Henry Dickinson, Samuel moved to Poplar Hall, where he had already taken a leading role in the community as judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Kent County. The move also placed Mary nearer her Philadelphia relations. Poplar Hall was situated on an artificially straightened section of the St. Jones River. There was plenty of activity delivering the necessities and shipping the agricultural products produced. Much of this product was wheat that along with other wheat from the region, was milled into a "superfine" flour. Most people at this plantation were servants and slaves of the Dickinsons.

Early life and family

Dickinson was educated at home by his parents and by recent immigrants employed for that purpose. Among them was the Presbyterian minister Francis Alison, who later established New London Academy in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Most important was his tutor, William Killen, who became a lifelong friend and who later became Delaware's first chief justice and chancellor. Dickinson was precocious and energetic and in spite of his love of Poplar Hall and his family was drawn to Philadelphia.

At 18, he began studying law under John Moland in Philadelphia. There he made friends with fellow students George Read and Samuel Wharton, among others. By 1753, he went to London for three years of study at the Middle Temple. He spent those years studying the works of Edward Coke and Francis Bacon at the Inns of Court, following in the footsteps of his lifelong friend, Pennsylvania Attorney General Benjamin Chew, and in 1757 was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar beginning his career as barrister and solicitor.

In protest to the Townshend Acts, Dickinson published '' Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania''. First published in the '' Pennsylvania Chronicle'', Dickinson's letters were re-printed by numerous other newspapers and became one of the most influential American political documents prior to the American Revolution. Dickinson argued that Parliament had the right to regulate commerce but lacked the right to levy duties for revenue. Dickinson further warned that if the colonies acquiesced to the Townshend Acts, Parliament would lay further taxes on the colonies in the future. After publishing these letters, he was elected in 1768 to the American Philosophical Society as a member.

On July 19, 1770, Dickinson married Mary Norris, known as Polly, a prominent and well educated thirty-year-old woman in Philadelphia with a substantial holding of real estate and personal property (including a 1,500 volume library, one of the largest in the colonies at the time) who had been operating her family's estate, Fair Hill, for several years by herself or with her sister. She was the daughter of wealthy Philadelphia Quaker and Speaker of the Pennsylvania General Assembly Isaac Norris and Sarah Logan, the daughter of James Logan. She was also cousin to the Quaker poet Hannah Griffitts. Dickinson and Norris had five children, but only two survived to adulthood: Sarah Norris "Sally" Dickinson and Maria Mary Dickinson. Dickinson never formally joined the Quaker Meeting because, as he explained, he believed in the "lawfulness of defensive war". He and Norris were married in a civil ceremony.

In Philadelphia, they lived at Fair Hill near Germantown, which they modernized through their combined wealth. Meanwhile, he built an elegant mansion on Chestnut Street but never lived there as it was confiscated and turned into a hospital during his 1776–77 absence in Delaware. It then became the residence of the French ambassador and still later the home of his brother, Philemon Dickinson. Fair Hill was burned by the British during the Battle of Germantown. While in Philadelphia as state president, he lived at the confiscated mansion of Joseph Galloway at Sixth and Market Streets, now established as the State Presidential Mansion.

Dickinson lived at Poplar Hall for extended periods only in 1776–77 and 1781–82. In August 1781, it was sacked by Loyalists and was badly burned in 1804. This home is now owned by the state of Delaware and is open to the public. After his service as president of Pennsylvania, he returned to live in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1785 and built a mansion at the northwest corner of 8th and Market Streets.

Continental Congress

Dickinson was one of the delegates from Pennsylvania to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and 1776. In support of the cause, he continued to contribute declarations in the name of the Congress. Dickinson wrote the Olive Branch Petition as the Second Continental Congress' last attempt for peace with Britain (King George III did not even read the petition). But through it all, agreeing with George Read and many others in Philadelphia and the Lower Counties, Dickinson's object was reconciliation, not independence and revolution. Dickinson prepared the first draft of the Articles of Confederation in 1776, after others had ratified the Declaration of Independence over his objection that it would lead to violence, and to follow through on his view that the Colonies would need a governing document to survive war against them. At the time he chaired the committee, charged with drafting the Articles, Dickinson was serving in the Continental Congress as a delegate from Pennsylvania.

When the Continental Congress began the debate on the Declaration of Independence on July 1, 1776, Dickinson reiterated his opposition to declaring independence at that time. Dickinson believed that Congress should complete the Articles of Confederation and secure a foreign alliance before issuing a declaration. Dickinson also objected to violence as a means for resolving the dispute. He abstained or absented himself from the votes on July 2 that declared independence and absented himself again from voting on the wording of the formal declaration on July 4. Dickinson understood the implications of his refusal to vote stating, "My conduct this day, I expect will give the finishing blow to my once too great and, my integrity considered, now too diminished popularity." Dickinson refused to sign the declaration, and since a proposal had been brought forth and carried that stated "for our mutual security and protection" no man could remain in Congress without signing, Dickinson voluntarily left and joined the Pennsylvania militia.Wright, Robert K. and MacGregor, Jr., Morris J. "Soldier-Statesmen of the Constitution." Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, D.C. (1987), 82-84. John Adams, a fierce advocate for independence and Dickinson's adversary on the floor of Congress, remarked, "Mr. Dickinson's alacrity and spirit certainly become his character and sets a fine example."

Dickinson is one of only two members of the First Continental Congress who actively took up arms during the war.

In the Pennsylvania militia, known as the Associators, Dickinson was given the rank of brigadier general and led 10,000 soldiers to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to protect that area against British attack from Staten Island. But because of his unpopular opinion on independence, two junior officers were promoted above him.

Return to Poplar Hall

Dickinson resigned his commission in December 1776 and went to stay at Poplar Hall in Kent County. While there he learned that his home on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia had been confiscated and converted into a hospital. He stayed at Poplar Hall for more than two years. The Delaware General Assembly tried to appoint him as their delegate to the Continental Congress in 1777, but he refused. In August 1777, he served as a private with the Kent County militia at Middletown, Delaware under General Caesar Rodney to help delay General William Howe's march to Philadelphia. In October 1777, Dickinson's friend Thomas McKean appointed him brigadier general of the Delaware Militia, but again Dickinson declined the appointment. Shortly afterwards he learned that the British had burned down his and his wife's Fair Hill property during the Battle of Germantown.

These years were not without accomplishment however. In 1777, Dickinson, Delaware's wealthiest farmer and largest slaveholder,Gregg II, Gary L. and Hall, Mark David. "America's Forgotten Founders." University of Louisville (2008), 97. decided to free his slaves. While Kent County was not a large slave-holding area, like farther south in Virginia, and even though Dickinson had only 37 slaves, this was an action of some considerable courage. Undoubtedly, the strongly abolitionist Quaker influences around them had their effect, and the action was all the easier because his farm had moved away from tobacco to less labor-intensive crops like wheat and barley. Dickinson was the only Founding Father to free his slaves in the period between 1776 and 1786. Benjamin Franklin had freed his slaves by 1770.

President of Delaware

On January 18, 1779, Dickinson was appointed to be a delegate for Delaware to the Continental Congress. During this term he signed the Articles of Confederation, having in 1776 authored their first draft while serving in the Continental Congress as a delegate from Pennsylvania. In August 1781, while still a delegate in Philadelphia, he learned that Poplar Hall had been severely damaged by a Loyalist raid. Dickinson returned to the property to investigate the damage and once again stayed for several months.

While there, in October 1781, Dickinson was elected to represent Kent County in the State Senate, and shortly afterwards the Delaware General Assembly elected him the president of Delaware. The General Assembly's vote was nearly unanimous, the only dissenting vote having been cast by Dickinson himself. Dickinson took office on November 13, 1781, and served until November 7, 1782. Beginning his term with a "Proclamation against Vice and Immorality," he sought ways to bring an end to the disorder of the days of the Revolution. It was a popular position and enhanced his reputation both in Delaware and Pennsylvania. Dickinson then successfully challenged the Delaware General Assembly to address lagging militia enlistments and to properly fund the state's assessment to the Confederation government. And recognizing the delicate negotiations then underway to end the American Revolution, Dickinson secured the Assembly's continued endorsement of the French alliance, with no agreement on a separate peace treaty with Great Britain.

However, as before, the lure of Pennsylvania politics was too great. On October 10, 1782, Dickinson was elected to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. On November 7, 1782, a joint ballot by the Council and the Pennsylvania General Assembly elected him as president of the council and thereby president of Pennsylvania. But he did not actually resign as president of Delaware. Even though Pennsylvania and Delaware had shared the same governor until very recently, attitudes had changed, and many in Delaware were upset at seemingly being cast aside so readily, particularly after the Philadelphia newspapers began criticizing the state for allowing the practice of multiple and non resident office holding. Dickinson's constitutional successor, John Cook, was considered too weak in his support of the Revolution, and it was not until January 12, 1783, when Cook called for a new election to choose a replacement, that Dickinson formally resigned.

President of Pennsylvania

When the American Revolution began, Dickinson fairly represented the center of Pennsylvania politics. The old Proprietary