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John Dickinson (November 8, 1732 – February 14, 1808) was an American lawyer and politician from Jones Neck in St. Jones Hundred, Kent County, Delaware; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware. He was an officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, President of Delaware, and President of Pennsylvania, and for a time, a member of the Democratic-Republican Party.
Early life and family
Dickinson was born November 8, 1732 at "Crosiadre," his family's tobacco plantation in Talbot County, Maryland, near Trappe, Maryland. He was the son of Samuel and Mary Cadwalader Dickinson. Samuel Dickinson was the great grandson of Charles Dickinson who emigrated from England to Virginia in 1654. Samuel inherited 2500 acres (10 km²) on five farms in three Maryland counties and over his lifetime increased that to 9000 acres (36 km²). Included was some 3000 acres (12 km²) on Jones Neck, in St. Jones Hundred, Kent County, Delaware, near Dover. The family moved there in 1740. Mary Cadwalader was Samuel Dickinson's second wife and daughter of the wealthy Quaker merchant John Cadwalader of Philadelphia.
Dickinson was tutored at home, and at the age of 18 began studying law under John Moland of Philadelphia. He was admitted to the Bar in 1753 and then spent three years of study at the Middle Temple in London. In 1757 he began the practice of law in Philadelphia.
In 1770 Dickinson married Mary Norris, also known as Polly, the daughter of another wealthy Philadelphia Quaker, and Speaker of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Isaac Norris. They had two daughters, Sally and Maria. Having been raised by an Anglican father and a strict Quaker mother, young John Dickinson learned a healthy skepticism of organized religion and never joined a church. However, married to another devout Quaker, he can hardly have escaped being influenced by the beliefs of the others in his family.
Delaware and Pennsylvania
Dickinson was always a very wealthy man with homes in Delaware and Philadelphia. His principal residence in Delaware was Poplar Hall, on the Jones Neck, near Dover in Kent County, Delaware. Although this is where he grew up, as an adult he lived here for extended periods only in 1776/77 and 1781/82. In August 1781 it was sacked by Loyalists and after being restored was badly burned in 1804. This home is now owned by the State of Delaware, is undergoing restoration 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.
In Philadelphia he had an elegant mansion on Chestnut Street as well as an old family estate of his wife, called Fairhill, near Germantown. His home on Chestnut Street was turned into a hospital during his 1776/77 absence in Delaware and Fairhill was burned by the British during the Battle of Germantown.
Revolutionary politics
The areas now called Pennsylvania and Delaware were never one colony although it was the desire of the common Proprietor William Penn to make them so. While they continued to share the same executive, usually a Deputy Governor, since 1704 they had completely separate legislatures, one meeting in Philadelphia and the other in New Castle.
Mid-eighteenth century politics in Delaware or the Lower Counties, as they were known, divided along the lines of an Anglican, Kent and Sussex County, pro-military Court Party that worked well with the Proprietary, and an Ulster-Scot, Presbyterian, New Castle County Country Party that opposed them.
Mid-eighteenth century Pennsylvania politics divided along the lines of a Proprietary Party and a Quaker Party, led by Benjamin Franklin. The Proprietary Party was strongly in support of the now Anglican Penn family's interests. The Quaker Party sought to end the apostate Proprietorship and establish Pennsylvania as a royal colony. Dickinson was a member of the Court party in the Lower Counties and the Proprietary Party in the Province, as Pennsylvania was known. This was perhaps because of his concern for the inviolability of personal property, but also perhaps because he and his neighbors in the Lower Counties depended on the Proprietary to finalize the favorable Mason-Dixon boundary of 1767 with Maryland and to keep the Lower Counties from being swallowed up by Pennsylvania.
Dickinson was elected to represent Kent County in the Assembly of the Lower Counties in the 1759/60 and 1760/61 sessions. He was the Speaker in the 1760/61 session.
The following year Dickinson was elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly, and served in the 1762/63 and 1764/65 sessions. When delegates were picked to go to the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 in New York, New York, the General Assembly chose Dickinson along with John Morton and George Bryan. There they approved a 14-point Declaration of Rights and Grievances, formulated largely by Dickinson.
During this time Dickinson had taken the leadership of a new faction in Pennsylvania politics known as the Half and Half Whigs, because half came from the Proprietary Party and half from the Quaker Party. They were the first opponents in Pennsylvania of the new British taxation policies. Compared to their colleagues in other colonies they were moderates, satisfied to make requests to Parliament. It took the passage of the Townshend Acts in 1767 to move Dickinson to write his series of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania that were published first in the Pennsylvania Chronicle and became a central set of positions for American colonists resisting the new British policies of colonial taxation. In them he wrote that once Parliament established the right to levy these taxes "the several colonial legislatures would...before long fall into disuse" and "nothing would be left for them to do, higher than to frame by-laws for the empounding of cattle and the yoking of hogs." The fame of these letters would earn Dickinson the title of the "Penman of the Revolution." Of course the farm to which reference is made was in Kent County.
Continental Congress
As events unfolded Dickinson was one of Pennsylvania's delegates 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. Among the most famous is one written with Thomas Jefferson, a Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms, with Dickinson’s famous conclusion that Americans were resolved to die freemen rather than live slaves. Another was the Olive Branch Petition, a last ditch appeal to King George III to resolve the dispute. But through it all, like New Castle County's George Read and most of his neighbors in Kent County, Dickinson's object was reconciliation, not independence and revolution. He was a proud devotee of the British Constitution and felt the dispute was with Parliament only.
Once the rest of the Continental Congress moved toward the Declaration of Independence, he hesitated with a handful of others, avoiding the debates, standing in the back of the hall, and abstaining from voting, reasoning "that the states had no settled governments of their own, had received no foreign aid, and had not yet set up a working confederation." 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."
Following the Declaration of Independence, Dickinson was given the rank of Brigadier General in the Pennsylvania militia, known as the Associators. He led some 10,000 soldiers to Elizabeth, New Jersey to protect that area against British attack from Staten Island. But the attack came from another direction. Due to his unpopular position on independence, he was removed as a delegate to the Continental Congress and two officers were promoted over him in the Pennsylvania Associators. He 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. Despite these setbacks, Dickinson insisted on always espousing his true feelings, no matter the consequence.
Congressman and President of Delaware
For over two years Dickinson stayed at Poplar Hill in a long depression. 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 as Brigadier General of the Delaware Militia, but again Dickinson declined the appointment. Shortly afterwards he learned that the British had burned down his Fairhill property during the Battle of Germantown.
These years were not without accomplishment, however. In 1777 Dickinson, Delaware's wealthest farmer and largest slaveholder, decided to free all his slaves. While Kent County was not a large slave holding area, like further 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 the less labor intensive crops like wheat and barley.
Finally, on January 18, 1779, Dickinson was appointed as 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 attack. Dickinson returned to the property to investigate the damage and stayed for several months.
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. As State President he worked to straighten out financial matters with the United States Congress, introduced the first census, and revised the state militia.
On November 7, 1782 Dickinson announced that he had accepted election as State President of Pennsylvania, but did not actually resign as State President of Delaware. 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 had important friends, however, and it wasn't until January 12, 1782, when his constitutional successor, John Cook, called for a new election to chose a replacement, that he formally resigned.
President of Pennsylvania
Dickinson began his term as President of Pennsylvania on November 7, 1782, serving until October 18, 1785. While serving this term he donated 500 acres (2 km²) of land to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, an educational institution founded in 1783 by his friend Benjamin Rush.
United States Constitution
After his service in Pennsylvania, Dickinson returned to Delaware to live in Wilmington. He was quickly appointed to represent Delaware at the Annapolis Convention, where he served as President. In 1787 Delaware sent him along with Gunning Bedford, Jr., Richard Bassett, George Read, and Jacob Broom to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 as one of its delegates. There he supported the effort to create a strong central government, but only after the Great Compromise assured each state, regardless of size, would have an equal vote in the future United States Senate. Following the Convention he promoted the resulting Constitution in a series of nine essays, written under the pen name, Fabius.
Once more Dickinson was returned to the State Senate for the 1792/93 session, but served for just one year before resigning due to his declining health. In his final years he worked to further the abolition movement, donated a considerable amount of his wealth to the "relief of the unhappy," and in 1801 published two volumes of his collected works on politics.
Death and legacy
Dickinson died February 14, 1808 at Wilmington, in New Castle County, Delaware, and is buried at the Friends Burial Ground in Wilmington.
Dickinson shares with Thomas McKean the distinction of being one of only two men to serve as Chief Executive of both Delaware and Pennsylvania after the Declaration of Independence.
Public offices
Before 1831 Delaware elections were held the first week of October. Members of the House of Assembly took office on the twentieth day of October for a term of one year. Before 1776, six Assemblymen were elected, at large, from each county. After 1776 the number increased to seven and an upper house was created, the Legislative Council, which had three State Councilmen elected, at large, from each county for a term of three years. After 1792 it was called the State Senate, and members took office the first week of January.
The General Assembly chose the Continental Congressmen for a term of one year, the State President for a term of three years, and the delegates to the U.S. Constitution Convention.
References
- Pickett, Russell S. John Dickinson.
Images
- Images of American Political History. John Dickinson.
- State of Delaware. Hall of Governors Portrait Gallery. Portrait courtesy of Historical and Cultural Affairs, Dover.
External links
- Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress. John Dickinson.
- Kestenbaum, Lawrence. The Political Graveyard.
- Find a Grave. John Dickinson.
- State of Delaware. John Dickinson Plantation
- "From Revolution to Reconstruction" website: John Dickinson biography
Places with more information
- University of Delaware Library 181 South College Ave., Newark, Delaware (302) 831-2965.
- Newark Free Library 750 Library Ave.,Newark Delaware (302) 731-7550.
- Corbit-Calloway Memorial Library 2nd and High St. Odessa Delaware (302)378-8838.
- Historical Society of Delaware 505 Market St., Wilmington, Delaware (302) 655-7161.
- Historical Society of Pennsylvania 1300 Locust St. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (215) 732-6200.
Continental Congressmen | Governors of Delaware | Governors of Pennsylvania | Delaware State Senators | Signers of the United States Constitution | People from Maryland | Quakers | English Americans | American Freemasons | 1732 births | 1808 deaths | Maryland Eastern Shore natives
"John Dickinson (congressman)"