John Dickinson (85)

Elected to the American Society in 1768. Elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1768.

John Dickinson (2 November 1732–14 February 1808) was a lawyer, public officeholder, and slaveholder, and a member of the American Philosophical Society via his 1768 election to the American Society. Born in Talbot County, Maryland, Dickinson was the first son of a wealthy plantation owner and merchant and nephew to APS Member Thomas Cadwalader and cousin to APS Members John and Lambert Cadwalader. Dickinson grew up in Kent County, Delaware, before he moved to study law under a lawyer in Philadelphia, followed in 1753 by three years of legal studies in England. Returning to Philadelphia in 1757, he began a law practice that he attended for fifteen years. Family ties and property kept Dickinson with one foot ever in Delaware. His education, legal training, and affluence spurred his unsurprising entrance into politics. As a “Philadelawarean,” he alternated between holding public offices in Pennsylvania and Delaware: notably, a seat on each of the assemblies though not at the same time. In the assembly, Dickinson supported the proprietary government, in large part because he feared a royally imposed government would be even more onerous. His fears were realized with the passage of the Sugar Act and Stamp Act. From that moment onward, Dickinson put pen to paper to galvanize his fellow white countrymen to action, a move that brought him international attention and enduring fame. Even as he supported wartime readiness, Dickinson never stopped advocating for a peaceful settlement between the colonies and Great Britain proper, embodied in his chairing of the Congressional committee that readied a second “olive branch” petition to the King. His betwixt and between position became increasingly politically untenable, most memorably by voting against the Declaration of Independence. Nevertheless, he served as colonel of Philadelphia’s First Battalion and faced British regulars in New Jersey. After the war, Dickinson faced public criticism over his conservative tack, but this did not stop him from being elected to a series of public offices, including chief executive officer of the state, president of the executive council, and head of the judiciary. Without qualifications, Dickinson supported the new federal constitution and joined Delaware as the first new state to ratify what he believed established a new government with an appropriate balance of power. Though he retired from public office in 1793, he stayed active and in the public through his writings as he turned his attention to the relationship between the United States and France at the turn of the century. By then he was then living in Delaware with his wife, Mary Norris (daughter of APS Member Isaac Norris), with whom he had three surviving children. In 1804 he rebuilt his childhood home, Poplar Hall, absent the enslaved men and women who had previously labored there, having manumitted them in 1786. Always a champion of education, he spent much of his retirement quietly paying for the education of children of his relatives, friends, and neighbors while contributing to Wilmington Academy and Cokesbury College while lending his name to another. While he kept his Quaker roots at a distance throughout much of his life, he resumed attendance at a Friends Meeting while adopting Quaker forms of address in correspondence and conversation. After a brief illness, he was buried beside his wife at the Friends Meeting in Wilmington, DE. (PI, ANB)