Not Your Father's Founders (8 page)

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Boston, Massachusetts
January 17, 1706−April 17, 1790
20,000 Accomplishments

Even though Benjamin Franklin's early education was limited, he was reading authors like Plutarch, Daniel Defoe, and Cotton Mather by the time he was eleven—which was the age at which he invented a pair of swim fins for his hands. Early signs suggested that Benjamin Franklin would be different from most boys his age. He was.

When he was twelve years old, Benjamin apprenticed as a printer in the shop owned by his mean-spirited and physically abusive older brother James. James, who became responsible for Benjamin's upbringing, beat him physically on occasion. And he would not let Benjamin write for his new paper, the
New England Courant
, that James founded in 1721. Tired of the mental and physical abuse, Benjamin ran away at age seventeen and ended up in Philadelphia. Since printing was all Benjamin knew, he took up the trade.

Franklin's career took off in Philadelphia. He wrote a number of pamphlets, started his own business, and, in 1727, established the Junto, a society of young men that met on Friday evenings for “self-improvement, study, mutual aid, and conviviality.” The group contributed greatly to his educational and social development. In between, he sired a son, William, out of wedlock.

Over the next few years Franklin was the creator of or advisor to a number of social organizations aimed at improving life in Philadelphia, including a fire department, a library, and an insurance company. His most notable achievement may have been the launching of
Poor Richard's Almanack
under the name of Richard Saunders, which was full of pithy sayings that are repeated today: “A penny saved is a penny earned,” “Without justice, courage is weak,” and “In success be moderate.”

Running a business and improving society were not satisfying enough for Franklin. He began dabbling in science and experimentation as well. In 1743, he invented the Franklin stove, a heat-efficient stove that made heating houses easier and less costly. Since it improved society, he refused to take out a patent. In 1752, he flew a kite in his famous experiment that demonstrated lightning was made of electricity.

All his activities drew the attention of his adoring public, and led him into politics. He was as proficient at that as he was in virtually everything else he tried.

Although Franklin was not convinced early in his life that the colonies should be free of British rule, he changed his mind as the 1760s progressed.

He lived in London as an agent for several colonies, including Georgia, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. He grew to dislike the way the British people viewed the colonists. As Franklin wrote, “Every man in England seems to consider himself as a piece of a sovereign over America.”

He had an opportunity to oppose the British government in 1775, when he was elected as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Second Continental Congress. The next year he helped draft the Declaration of Independence, and then signed it.

No one expected Franklin to serve actively in the military during the Revolutionary War. After all, he was sixty-six years old when he signed the Declaration of Independence. Instead, he was dispatched overseas to seek French assistance with America's war effort. He arrived in Paris on December 21, 1776, as one of the members of the commissioners of Congress to the French court. He did not return until 1785.

Franklin negotiated successfully with the French for aid to the United States. Then, between 1779 and 1781 he was appointed to a commission to negotiate a peace treaty with Britain. He signed the Treaty of Alliance with the French government in 1778 and the peace treaty ending the Revolutionary War in 1783.

After Franklin returned to the United States, he kept busy. He served as president of the Pennsylvania Executive Council, which was the executive branch of the state's government, from 1785 to 1788.

In 1787, he served as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention to debate the merits of the U.S. Constitution, but he did not participate often in the discussions. Nevertheless, he signed the document after it was ratified.

He concentrated on the abolition of slavery for the next couple of years. But time caught up with him in 1790. He passed away at age eighty-four. About 20,000 people attended his funeral—seemingly one for every accomplishment in his extremely productive lifetime.