Dickinson, John (1732-1808)

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John Dickinson (1732-1808)

Lawyer and statesman

Study Abroad. John Dickinson was born on 8 November 1732 into a wealthy, socially prominent Quaker family on the eastern shore of Maryland. Dickinson was schooled at home until 1750, when he went to Philadelphia to study law in the office of John Moland, a prominent attorney. Dickinson worked in Moland’s office for three years, copying documents and studying in the company of other apprentices. In 1753 he went to London’s Inns of Court to complete his legal education. The study of law in the Inns was an unstructured affair. Dickinson followed a daily regimen of reading law books, visiting law courts, and debating the fine points of law with fellow law students. He learned not only court procedure but also, from discussions with the other residents, how to organize and present his views on a variety of topics. This broad but rigorous legal training helped him develop an extensive knowledge of England’s legal history and a keen insight into British politics. This close contact with politics taught him other, troubling lessons: he was distressed to learn that the members of the House of Lords were rather ordinary men, and he was even more disturbed to see corruption and incompetence among members of the House of Commons. He completed his training in London upon admission to the bar in 1757 and sailed home to Philadelphia.

Legislator. Dickinson began his legal practice as soon as he returned home. In Pennsylvania a long-running political feud was heating up at this time—the dispute between the supporters of the elected assembly and the supporters of the proprietorship. The assembly, deriving authority from the 1701 Charter of Liberties, had gradually increased its control of local financial affairs. The proprietary faction were the supporters of the heirs of William Penn. The proprietors, who owned one-tenth of all the land in the colony, also had some political powers—they appointed the governor and the judges. Dickinson did not get involved in this dispute at the outset of his political career, but when he was elected to the assembly in 1762, he was quickly forced to take sides.

Champion of the Status Quo. One of the leaders of the movement to replace the proprietary system with a royal charter form of government was Benjamin Franklin. He and his allies argued that the proprietors, as owners of one-tenth of all the land in the colony, had a conflict of interest on the issue of taxes, when, in their positions as governor’s council members and judges, they needed to raise taxes and appropriate money for defense of western settlements. The antiproprietor faction urged a separation between the power of government and the ownership of property and sought to have the assembly petition the Crown for a change to a royal colony form of government.

Moderate Course. Dickinson pointed out that other colonies with royal charters chafed under many burdens and urged that Pennsylvania not change to a charter simply to spite the proprietors. More important, he argued, Pennsylvanians had benefits under their 1701 charter that they put at risk by asking for a change—complete religious freedom, with no oaths required for political participation, and the assembly was less subject to the will of the governor than were the legislatures of the royal colonies. Dickinson disliked the proprietary form of government, but he saw too much to lose by changing to a royal charter. He advised bargaining with the royal authorities to solve the primary problem, the taxation dispute. Dickinson’s arguments had only partial success in the assembly. The members voted to send Franklin to London to petition for a change of the charter, provided that he preserve Pennsylvania’s civil and religious privileges. When Franklin arrived in London, in March 1765, as the Stamp Act controversy was gathering steam, Parliament’s determination to tax the colonies made the antiproprietary petition a lost cause. Dickinson’s analysis of the situation was clearly correct.

Stamp Act Congress. Pennsylvania sent Dickinson to the Stamp Act Congress in New York in September 1765. He gained widespread notice as the principal draftsman of the Congress’s “Declarations of Rights and Privileges.” The delegates acknowledged that the colonists were loyal to the British Crown and subject to the authority of Parliament. However, as Dickinson wrote: “It is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people, and the undoubted right of Englishmen, that no taxes be imposed on them, but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives.” The Stamp Act Congress’s resolutions and petition were sent to Parliament and helped convince Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act in 1766.

“Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer.” After the settlement of the Stamp Act controversy, Parliament passed three acts that rekindled the dispute: the Quartering Act required colonial legislatures to provide barrack necessities (candles, mattress straw, windowpanes, etc.) for British soldiers stationed in the colonies; the Restraining Act prohibited the New York assembly from meeting until it complied with the Quartering Act; and the Townshend Act imposed new duties on goods imported into the colonies from England. These three acts inspired Dickinson to write his most famous work: “Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer.” His first letter, published in a Philadelphia newspaper on 2 December 1767, described some personal qualities. He said he was a retired farmer, an educated gentleman interested in promoting the welfare of men, and one who believed that such welfare was best secured with liberty. At the rate of one letter every week for twelve weeks, the farmer wrote about these three acts. The letters were quickly republished in newspapers in other cities, and pamphlet versions soon appeared as well. The sober tone of the letters and their call for cautious opposition to the various tax acts awakened and unified people in all the colonies. The letters generated favorable comments in all the colonies and were discussed and praised in New England town meetings.

Continental Congress. In 1774 Dickinson was a delegate from Pennsylvania at the First Continental Congress. He played a prominent role outlining the grievances and drafting essays, resolutions, and petitions. He based his arguments on natural law and constitutional limitations of Parliament’s power. He focused on two main grievances—Parliament’s interference with the internal affairs of the colonies and its wrongful use of its power over trade. The Second Continental Congress convened in May 1775, after the battles at Lexington and Concord. Dickinson, working with John Duane of New York, proposed a plan for a reconciliation with Britain. He urged a three-staged approach: preparations for war, sending a petition to the king, and negotiating a permanent set of commercial regulations and a revenue settlement. Dickinson’s insistence that Congress wait for a response to the Olive Branch Petition was the main controversy in the debate. The petition was sent in July, and support for Dickinson’s position on reconciliation wasted away as months passed with no response from London. Finally, in November, Congress learned that the king would not respond. Dickinson’s prestige in Congress waned rapidly.

Declaration of Independence. Dickinson labored under the conviction that reconciliation was still possible although he became increasingly doubtful. He simply was unable to make the same leap that so many others already had, that independence was inevitable. In Congress in June 1776 the delegates debated declaring independence. Dickinson urged that independence be deferred at least until the colonies could agree on how they would form a confederation and ascertain the likelihood of foreign help in the war. When the motion for independence was finally presented, Dickinson abstained and did not sign the Declaration of Independence. In the next several weeks he drafted the Articles of Confederation for a committee of the Continental Congress. On 20 July, Pennsylvania’s provincial convention ousted him from the congressional delegation because he had not supported independence. Dickinson was not disappointed at his ouster, writing that “no youthful Lover ever stript off his cloathes to step into Bed to his blooming beautiful bride with more delight that I have cast off my Popularity.”

Later Years. Dickinson spent the next several years out of the public spotlight. He moved to Delaware and resumed his law practice. In 1781, however, he was elected to Delaware’s legislature. Later that year, under the then-current form of government, the legislature elected him president of the state for a three-year term. Dickinson’s main interests were in Philadelphia, though, and in late 1782 he returned there, where he was promptly elected to the Pennsylvania legislature. Shortly thereafter the legislature elected him president of Pennsylvania. Dickinson was president of both states at the same time but resigned the Delaware office after three months. In 1783, believing there was a need for a college in the western part of Pennsylvania, he founded Dickinson College. He endowed the new school with two farms, totaling five hundred acres, and a library of 1,500 volumes. Dickinson represented Delaware at the Annapolis Convention in 1786 and at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. During the debate on ratification, Dickinson’s “Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer” were often cited by opponents of ratification. Dickinson wrote a series of essays signed “Fabius” in support of ratification. He helped write the Delaware constitution in 1792 and wrote occasionally on political matters for the next ten years. He died on 19 February 1808.