JOHN DICKINSON

Talbot County, Maryland
November 20, 1732−February 14, 1808
An Enigma Wrapped in a Puzzle

The highly principled John Dickinson offered incontrovertible proof that not all the Founding Fathers always saw eye to eye. He was at various times a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania and Delaware, president of both colonies/states, a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, a successful lawyer, and one of the wealthiest men in America. He was also one of the most enigmatic Founding Fathers, singled out by a unique legacy: He had a new college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania named after him, twenty-five years before he died.

Law School and Leadership

Dickinson began studying law in his adopted city, Philadelphia, when he was eighteen years old. Five years later he moved to London to continue his studies. He gained an affinity for the British Constitution while he was there, which affected his thinking when he returned to the colonies. Dickinson believed that the colonists should adhere to its tenets. He argued that their gripes were with the British Parliament, not its constitution, and could be resolved according to constitutional principles.

After he returned to the colonies, Dickinson married into a Quaker family. His family had Quaker roots, but had disassociated itself from the society after his sister, Betsy, was married in an Anglican church. The Quakers labeled her marriage as a “disorderly marriage,” which displeased John and Betsy’s father, who broke off relations with the society.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

Unlike many of his contemporaries and colleagues, Dickinson did not sign the Declaration of Independence. He was adamantly opposed to American independence and believed firmly that the colonies and Britain could reconcile if only the patriots would cool their rhetoric. He recommended that the colonies form a confederation before declaring independence.

Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

“KINGS OR PARLIAMENTS COULD NOT GIVE THE RIGHTS ESSENTIAL TO HAPPINESS…. WE CLAIM THEM FROM A HIGHER SOURCE—FROM THE KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF ALL THE EARTH. THEY ARE NOT ANNEXED TO US BY PARCHMENTS AND SEALS. THEY ARE CREATED IN US BY THE DECREES OF PROVIDENCE, WHICH ESTABLISH THE LAWS OF OUR NATURE. THEY ARE BORN WITH US; EXIST WITH US; AND CANNOT BE TAKEN FROM US BY ANY HUMAN POWER, WITHOUT TAKING OUR LIVES.”

—JOHN DICKINSON

Nevertheless, John married Mary (“Polly”) Norris on July 19, 1770. Her father, Isaac, was the Speaker of the Pennsylvania General Assembly and one of the wealthiest men in the colony. The marriage increased his access to wealth and political prowess due to the Norris family’s influence, but it did not lead him to become an active Quaker, although he retained a belief in the society’s principles. Dickinson had no objections to defensive war, in contrast to the pacifistic views held by the Norris family.

Dickinson’s political career blossomed in the mid-1770s and early 1780s. He became a First Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania effective August 2, 1774, which positioned him to participate in the discussions about independence in 1776. As a member of the First and Second Continental Congresses, he was well versed in what the colonists wanted. He did not necessarily want what most of them did.

Dickinson the Contrarian

Dickinson did not advocate independence or revolution. He favored reconciliation. Nevertheless, he worked closely with other delegates to promote the colonists’ search for a solution to the “British problem.” He and Thomas Jefferson collaborated on A Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, which received considerable attention. In that declaration, Dickinson concluded that Americans were “resolved to die free men rather than live slaves.”

Despite his close relationships with the Philadelphia delegates in 1776, Dickinson continued to urge for a peaceful agreement with Britain. He had made clear his stance regarding independence, taxes, and other issues regarding British-American relations in his well-known tract, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, which comprised a series of essays he wrote under an assumed name in 1767−68. In them, he argued that the colonies were sovereign in their internal affairs and that taxes levied by Parliament to raise revenues instead of regulating trade were unconstitutional.

Dickinson’s letters circulated widely among the thirteen colonies and laid the groundwork for the arguments against many of the revenue-
generating laws imposed by Parliament. They earned him the title of “Penman of the Revolution.” He stayed true to his principles.

I’ll Join the Army Instead

Dickinson tried to convince his counterparts that independence was not in their best interests. They argued otherwise. At the vote for independence on July 2, 1776, he abstained. Nor did he cast a ballot on July 4 when Congress voted on the wording on the formal declaration. Dickinson believed he had one choice after independence won the day: leave the meeting. He did so with a heavy heart and misgivings about his personal and political future.

Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

“MY CONDUCT THIS DAY, I EXPECT WILL GIVE THE FINISHING BLOW TO MY ONCE TOO GREAT AND, MY INTEGRITY CONSIDERED, NOW TOO DIMINISHED POPULARITY.”

—JOHN DICKINSON AFTER THE JULY 4, 1776, VOTE

After the Congress adjourned, Dickinson accepted an assignment as a brigadier general in the Pennsylvania militia. He led 10,000 troops to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to help protect the area from an anticipated British invasion. But when two junior officers were promoted above him, probably due to his unpopular stance against independence, he resigned his commission and returned to his estate in Delaware.

Like so many other patriots, Dickinson paid a material price for his resistance to Britain. Even though Dickinson was not 100 percent committed to independence, the British did not do him any favors during the war. They confiscated his mansion in Philadelphia while he was in Delaware and turned it into a hospital. They burned his wife’s family’s estate, Fairhill, during the Battle of Germantown in Pennsylvania on October 4, 1777. To make matters worse, Tories ransacked another of his residences, Poplar Hill, in August 1781.

The End Was Not Near

Despite Dickinson’s unhappy departure from the Second Continental Congress, he retained his popularity among voters. After the war he held several political offices, including those of president of Delaware and president of Pennsylvania, at the same time.

Dickinson left active politics in 1793 after a final term in the Delaware Senate. He spent the next fifteen years working to advance the abolition of slavery and writing his collected works on politics, which he published in 1801. Dickinson also donated a significant portion of his wealth to the “relief of the unhappy.” His benevolence became a part of his strange legacy—and his death did not go unnoticed among his former colleagues.

FEDERAL FACTS

It was legal for individuals to hold offices in two states in the late eighteenth century if the officeholder owned property in both.

Quotations to Live (and Die) By!

“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.”

—THOMAS JEFFERSON

Despite his unwillingness to vote for independence in 1776, John Dickinson never lost the respect of his fellow patriots, although he perplexed them because of his principled stances on issues and his insistence on making his views known in plain terms. Nothing Dickinson did or said should have surprised them.

REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS

John Dickinson believed that it was not always necessary for him to do what people—even those who elected him—expected. It was more important to do what he considered right.

Because he was such an enigma, John Dickinson is often overlooked by historians regarding his role in the movement for independence.