John Dickinson Quotes

John Dickinson , a Founding Father of the United States, was an attorney and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware. Dickinson was known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his twelve Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, published individually in 1767 and 1768, and he also wrote "The Liberty Song" in 1768.

As a member of the First Continental Congress, where he signed the Continental Association, Dickinson drafted most of the 1774 Petition to the King, and then, as a member of the Second Continental Congress, he wrote the 1775 Olive Branch Petition. Both of these attempts to negotiate with King George III of Great Britain failed. Dickinson also reworked Thomas Jefferson's language to write the final draft of the 1775 Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms.

While in Congress, Dickinson served on the committee that wrote the Model Treaty, a template for seeking alliances with foreign countries, but he opposed independence from Great Britain. He either abstained or was absent from the vote on the Declaration of Independence and refused to sign the document after its passage. Nevertheless, Dickinson wrote the first draft of the 1776–1777 Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union and served as a militia officer during the Revolution. He later was elected president of the 1786 Annapolis Convention, which called for the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and as a delegate from Delaware, he signed the United States Constitution.

One of the wealthiest men in the British American colonies, Dickinson served as president of Delaware and president of Pennsylvania . Upon Dickinson's death, President Thomas Jefferson referred to Dickinson as, "mong the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain" and called him "one of the great worthies of the revolution."Together with his wife Mary Norris Dickinson, he is the namesake of Dickinson College, Penn State Dickinson Law, and the Dickinson Complex at the University of Delaware. John Dickinson High School in Wilmington, Delaware was dedicated in his honor in 1959. Wikipedia  

✵ 8. November 1732 – 14. February 1808
John Dickinson photo
John Dickinson: 10   quotes 0   likes

Famous John Dickinson Quotes

“It is inseparably essential to the freedom of a people that no taxes be imposed on them but with their own consent, given personally or by their representatives.”

From the first draft of the Declaration of Rights and Grievances passed October 19, 1765 by The First Congress of the American Colonies, also known as the Stamp Act Congress; as cited in John Dickinson and the Revolution in Pennsylvania, 1764-1776, David Louis Jacobson, University of California Press (1965), p. 32

John Dickinson Quotes

“Let us take care of our rights, and we therein take care of our property. 'Slavery is ever preceded by sleep.”

From Letters from a Farmer, in Pennsylvania, to the inhabitants of the British Colonies, Letter XII, Dickinson, Philadelphia

“Our cause is just, our union is perfect.”

Declaration on taking up Arms in 1775. From the original manuscript draft in Dickinson's handwriting, which has given rise to the belief that he, not Jefferson (as formerly claimed), is the real author of this sentence.

Similar authors

Joseph Addison photo
Joseph Addison 226
politician, writer and playwright
Benjamin Franklin photo
Benjamin Franklin 183
American author, printer, political theorist, politician, p…
Maximilien Robespierre photo
Maximilien Robespierre 78
French revolutionary lawyer and politician
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 185
German writer, artist, and politician
Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Niccolo Machiavelli 130
Italian politician, Writer and Author
Thomas Paine photo
Thomas Paine 262
English and American political activist
Richard Brinsley Sheridan photo
Richard Brinsley Sheridan 58
Irish-British politician, playwright and writer
Thomas More photo
Thomas More 26
English Renaissance humanist
Marquis de Sade photo
Marquis de Sade 30
French novelist and philosopher
Pierre Beaumarchais photo
Pierre Beaumarchais 11
French playwright diplomat and polymath