John Dickinson
John Dickinson was born in November 1732. His ancestors who arrived in the colonies as early as 1654 and over the generations had accumulated thousands of acres of land in Maryland, creating large plantations worked by enslaved and indentured laborers. Dickinson grew up in a large family. His father, Samuel Dickinson, and his first wife had nine children; after her death, widower Samuel married Mary Cadwalader in 1731, and John was their first of three sons. Samuel moved the family to Poplar Hall, a large farm growing wheat, and John Dickinson spent much of his childhood there and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dickinson's life and views were influenced by the Quaker faith, though he did not formally join a Quaker Meeting. Tutors educated him at home until he began studying law with John Moland in Philadelphia. From 1753 to 1756, Dickinson lived in London, England, and studied at the Middle Temple. Returning to North America, he was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar of attorneys in 1757 and began his law career.
Dickinson became a leader among the voices protesting Parliament’s taxes following the end of the French and Indian War. Responding to the Townshend Act, he wrote and published “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania” in 1767 and 1768. Originally printed in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, these letters were reprinted in many colonial newspapers. Dickinson wrote that while the British Parliament had the right to regulate commerce, it did not have the authority to levy taxes or revenue duties. He further argued that if the colonies submitted to the Townshend Act, it would embolden Parliament to take more colonial powers and institute more taxes.
John Dickinson married Mary Norris on July 19, 1770. She had inherited a large amount of real estate and one of the largest libraries in Colonial America with 1,500 volumes, and the Norris family was well-connected politically and socially. The couple had five children, though only two daughters lived to adulthood. The family settled at Fair Hill near Germantown outside Philadelphia, one of Mary’s inherited properties. (Dickinson also built a home in Philadelphia on Chestnut Street that was taken over during the Revolutionary War and used as a hospital and later the home of the French ambassador.)
As taxation protests and appeals to the British Parliament continued, the First Continental Congress assembled in 1774. Dickinson served as a Pennsylvania delegate and returned the following year to the Second Continental Congress. Shots fired in Massachusetts in April 1775 and the forming of the Continental Army put the colonies in a state of war. From his position in the congress, Dickinson wrote the Olive Branch Petition to King George III, a formal attempt to seek redress and avoid continuation of war. He led efforts hoping for reconciliation with Britain and did not initially support discussions of independence. In 1776 Dickinson argued against independence until a foreign alliance had been made. He abstained from voting on the question of independence on July 2 and also decided not to sign the Declaration of Independence. Following the rule that no delegate would remain in the Second Continental Congress at that time without signing the Declaration, Dickinson voluntarily left and then joined the Pennsylvania militia, winning the respect of some of his harshest political critics. He received the rank of brigadier general and commanded soldiers in New Jersey, opposing the British advance from Staten Island; he resigned in December 1776 and returned to his home at Poplar Hall in Delaware.
The following year—1777—Delaware tried to send Dickinson back to the Continental Congress as their delegate, but he declined. At home, Dickinson conditionally emancipated some of the enslaved people who had worked on his farms; partly prompted by religious influence and partly because of changing agricultural crops, this decision was still notable in its era. Dickinson was one of only two Founding Fathers to free enslaved people prior to 1786 (Benjamin Franklin was the first to take this step). In August, he volunteered as private with the local militia, joining a force to help General Caesar Rodney oppose the British march to Philadelphia. Later that autumn, Dickinson learned that the British army burned his home at Fair Hill on October 4, 1777, during the Battle of Germantown.
By January 1779, Dickinson returned to the Second Continental Congress as a Delaware delegate. He signed the Articles of Confederation—a document he had helped to initially draft years before and that was supposed to bring the states together in matters of defense and common good. British Loyalists attacked his home at Poplar Hill in 1781 and when he returned to assess the damage, locals elected him to the Delaware State Senate, followed shortly with a vote from the state’s General Assembly to make him President of Delaware. In his new role, Dickinson worked to enlist more state militia, fulfill the state’s funding requirement to the Confederation government, and vocally supported the continuation of the American-French Alliance. He was elected to the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania and then President of Pennsylvania, leading him to resign from Delaware leadership for a time. During his three years in the Pennsylvania office, Dickinson tried to settle boundary and title disputes with other states, worked with a small majority in the General Assembly, and resolved the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, a veterans’ protest over the lack of pay. Weary, Dickinson left office in October 1785.
After a front row seat to challenges of state cooperation and weak national government under the Articles of Confederation, Dickinson represented Delaware at the Annapolis Convention. In 1787, he represented that state at the Philadelphia Convention, better known as the Constitutional Convention. He supported the Constitution after the Great Compromise which ensured that all states would have an equal number of votes in the Senate. Dickinson helped to draft the wording of the Constitution and particularly used “person” rather than “man” when referring to individuals. He also helped to draft the First Amendment to the Constitution. John Dickinson did not sign the Constitution due to illness, but he asked another delegate to sign his name to the document, signaling his support and involvement. During the ratification of the Constitution, Dickinson wrote nine supportive essays, using the pen name “Fabius.”
During the next decade, Dickinson continued to be active in state government. He worked to revise Delaware’s state constitution and severed in the state senate in 1793, before resigning due to ill health. Toward the end of his life, he published two books on politics, advocated for the abolition movement and used his money for charitable causes. John Dickinson died on February 8, 1808, and was buried in Wilmington, Delaware.
Thomas Jefferson privately eulogized Dickinson, writing, “A more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us. Among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain, he continued to the last the orthodox advocate of the true principles of our new government and his name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution."
