Everything about John Dickinson Delegate totally explained
John Dickinson (
November 2 1732 –
February 14 1808) was an
American lawyer and
politician from
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania and
Wilmington,
Delaware. He was a
militia officer during the
American Revolution, a
Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania and Delaware, a delegate to the
U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787,
President of Delaware,
President of Pennsylvania and served from 1782 to 1785 as an
ex officio member and president of the board of trustees of the
University of Pennsylvania. Among the wealthiest men in the
British American colonies, he's known as the
Penman of the Revolution, for his
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, where he eloquently argued the cause of American liberty. Although refusing to vote in favor of the
Declaration of Independence in 1776, he supported the establishment of the new government during the American Revolution and afterward in many official capacities.
Family history
Dickinson was born
November 2 1732 at "Croisadore," his family's
tobacco plantation in
Talbot County, near
Trappe, 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 he began a plantation, "Croisadore," meaning "cross of gold." He 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 2500 acres (10 km²) on five farms in three Maryland counties and over his lifetime increased that to 9000 acres (36 km²). He also bought the Kent County property from his cousin and expanded it into a massive domain of some 3000 acres (12 km²) 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, producing tobacco in Talbot County and
wheat and
corn in the more sandy soil of Kent County. As a result the family was enormously wealthy.
Samuel Dickinson first married Judith Troth and they'd nine children. As was often the case, four died as children, but tragically Judith herself died in 1729, and the three eldest sons died while in England seeking their education. Widowed, with two young children, Henry and Betsy, Samuel married Mary Cadwalader in 1731. She was the daughter of the prominent
Quaker, John Cadwalader of Philadelphia. Their sons, John and
Philemon, were born in the next few years.
For three generations the Dickinson family had been devout members of the Third Haven Friends Meeting in Talbot County and the Cadwaladers were equally devout 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. This event hurt Samuel Dickinson in such a way that he never participated in the Meeting again.
It may have also been one of the reasons for Samuel’s decision to move the family to "Poplar Hall" in 1740. Leaving "Croisadore" to elder son, Henry Dickinson, they made the trek to their new home, where Samuel 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, and young John was to grow up under the growing attraction of that great metropolis.
By contemporary standards "Poplar Hall" was itself a busy place, situated on a now straightened bend 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, an especially soft, fine wheat, that along with other wheat from the region, was milled into the famous “superfine” flour. But the people were largely servants and
slaves, employed by, or doing business with the Dickinsons. Neighbors were a long way away over the marshy hinterland, and even those that were there were not close friends, separated psychologically by differences in wealth and religion. The land itself was a vast, damp, mosquito ridden domain, acquired because it was cheaper to buy than to improve, and therefore quickly worn out and abandoned. It had a subtle, quiet beauty, fully appreciated by John Dickinson and his father, but less so by others in the family, and not at all by his wife in the years to come.
Early life and education
Dickinson was educated at home, largely by doting parents, but also by recent immigrants employed for that purpose. Included among them was the Presbyterian minister Francis Alison, who later began the well known New London Academy in
Chester County,
Pennsylvania. Most important was William Killen, who became a life-long friend, and himself had a distinguished career as 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 himself irresistibly drawn to the larger stage up river in Philadelphia.
Recognizing all this, his father sent him, at the age of 18, to begin studying the law under John Moland in Philadelphia. There he made friends with fellow students
George Read and
Samuel Wharton, among others, and enjoyed the new experience of urban life. By 1753 it was apparent that the place he really needed to study was
London, and in spite of having already lost three sons while making similar trips, Samuel Dickinson agreed to send John for what ended up as three years of study at the
Middle Temple. He spent those years studying the works of Edward Coke and Francis Bacon among others, at the
Inns of Court, and by early 1757 was admitted to the
Bar. After returning to "Poplar Hall" for a lengthy visit, he was back in Philadelphia by the fall, having begun his career as barrister and solicitor.
Philadelphia lawyer
Dickinson quickly rose to a respectable position at the Philadelphia
Bar. Joined for a time by his brother,
Philemon Dickinson, he was articulate and self-assured and carried a “dogmatic certainty about his actions and opinions.” This and a hypersensitivity to criticism led him into rivalry with the likes of
Benjamin Chew and
Joseph Galloway. But it also led him into long friendships with
George Read and
Thomas McKean of
New Castle,
Delaware, even if his political views often clashed with McKean.
The areas now called
Pennsylvania and
Delaware were never one colony, although it had been 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'd 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 a largely
Anglican,
Kent and
Sussex County based,
Court Party that worked well with the Proprietary, and a largely
Ulster-Scot,
Presbyterian,
New Castle County based
Country Party that opposed them.
Even though a resident of Philadelphia, Dickinson was elected to his first political office in October 1759, serving as one of six persons representing Kent County in the 1759/60
Assembly of the Lower Counties at New Castle. Elected again to the 1760/61 session, he was selected
Speaker. In 1761 he failed to be elected to the
Assembly of the Lower Counties, and later to the
Pennsylvania General Assembly as well. But in the following year he won a special election for a seat from Philadelphia, and served in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, during the 1762/63 and 1764/65 sessions.
Mid-eighteenth-century Pennsylvania politics divided along the lines of a
Proprietary Party and a
Popular or Quaker Party, led at first by
David Lloyd and later by
Benjamin Franklin. The minority Proprietary Party was strongly in support of the now
Anglican Penn family's political and property interests. But it was also in favor of providing an adequate military effort to protect the colony. In order to gain seats it supported giving representation in the General Assembly to western areas. For both reasons it enjoyed strong support in the west. The main interest of the majority Popular Party was in limiting the proprietary authority, taxing the proprietary lands, and increasing the amount of locally printed paper currency in circulation. Ultimately they sought to end the apostate proprietorship and establish Pennsylvania as a royal colony. Dickinson associated with the Court faction 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 because he feared the possible loss of liberties that might accrue with an assumption of royal government. In the Lower Counties there was also a belief that the Proprietary was needed to finalize the favorable
Mason-Dixon boundary of 1767 with
Maryland and to keep the Lower Counties from being swallowed up by Pennsylvania.
This political issue brought Dickinson into a bitter conflict with
Benjamin Franklin and his protégé,
Joseph Galloway. A lengthy exchange of published pamphlets containing highly personal attacks eventually brought Dickinson and Galloway to blows on the floor of the General Assembly. The 1764 elections ousted Franklin and Galloway from the Assembly, but Franklin recovered with an appointment as Pennsylvania’s agent to Great Britain and Dickinson gained no respect from the brawling affair. He didn't stand for election in 1765.
Personal affairs
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. Dickinson never formally joined the Quaker Meeting, because, as he explained, he believed in the "lawfulness of defensive war." However, now married to another devout Quaker, he was always strongly influenced by the beliefs of the Society of Friends.
He was already among the wealthiest of men, and this marriage only increased that. In Philadelphia, he preferred to live at the family estate of his wife, called
Fairhill, near
Germantown. 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.
Fairhill 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.
As an adult Dickinson lived at his family home,
Poplar Hall, on the Jones Neck, in
Kent County, 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.
Revolutionary politics
When delegates were picked to go to the
Stamp Act Congress of 1765 in
New York,
New York, the
General Assembly chose John 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. These 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 Dickinson 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 impounding 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, Delaware.
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 of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, with Dickinson’s famous conclusion that Americans were
resolved to die free men 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, agreeing with
New Castle County's George Read and many others in
Philadelphia and the
Lower Counties, 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. He was also a product of his Quaker heritage, which insisted that disputes be settled without violence.
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 hadn't 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." Dickinson was the only member of the Congress that refused to sign the Declaration.
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 for him 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 more than 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 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 wealthiest farmer and largest slaveholder, decided to free his slaves. While Kent County wasn't 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 the less labor intensive crops like wheat and barley. Furthermore
manumission was a multi-year process and many of the workers remained obligated to service for a considerable additional time.
Finally, 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. He also introduced the first census.
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 didn't actually resign as
State 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 wasn't until
January 12 1783, when Cook called for a new election to chose a replacement, that Dickinson formally resigned.
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