3.1: John Dickinson, Architect of the Articles of Confederation

 It's 1783, and military mutinies are intermittently breaking out across the United States.  This, and other, issues stem from problems with the first official “national” government of the United States: the Articles of Confederation, of which today's key figure wrote the first draft.  He served as foil for John Adams during the fight to declare independence…but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a believer in the United States, and he would be well-positioned to address the simmering tensions among the military that almost led to the destruction of the new federal government.  In today’s episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, we explore the Architect of the Articles of Confederation, John Dickinson and his role in quelling the Philadelphia Mutiny of 1783.

Key People
John Dickinson
George Washington
Alexander Hamilton
Robert Morris

Key Events
Pennsylvania Line Mutiny of 1783
Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer
Olive Branch Petition
Articles of Confederation

The third season of History: Beyond the Textbook focuses on the stories of individuals who shaped "America's Crucial Years" of 1783-1790, and runs from October 8-December 24. Catch up on Season One, "America's Colonial Era," and Season Two, "America's Revolution," wherever you listen to your podcasts!

Feel free to contact us with feedback or questions by clicking the "Send Us a Text" link or email us at: hbttpodcast@gmail.com

Transcript

It’s 1783, and the war is winding to a close…hold on, aren’t we supposed to be spending this season focusing on the years after the war?  Well, yes, but keep in mind that there will be significant overlap and continuities between the issues that the United States faced during the war, and those that plagued the nation in its aftermath.  In fact, our first three episodes of Season 3 cover three such issues: military issues, financial problems, and our weakened ability to negotiate with foreign nations.  All of these issues stem from problems with the first official “national” government of the United States, although to refer to it as “national” would be a stretch: the Articles of Confederation.  This episode will deal with military issues, and even though our main subject didn’t necessarily serve in the Continental Army, he did serve in the militia.  He served as foil for John Adams during the fight to declare independence…but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a believer in the United States, and he would be well-positioned to address the simmering tensions among the military that almost led to the destruction of the new federal government.  In today’s episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, we explore the Architect of the Articles of Confederation, John Dickinson and his role in quelling the Philadelphia Mutiny of 1783.

Act I: Troubled Troops

To begin, we return to our opening statement: it’s 1783, and the war is winding to a close.  The news of the Paris Peace Agreement has made its way back to the United States, but it hasn’t been made official, and there is a sizeable detachment of British troops that continue to occupy New York City.  However, the soldiers, and even some officers, that have served for years have reached their proverbial breaking point.  We intend to place an emphasis on the Philadelphia Mutiny of 1783, but other mutinies occurred prior to this time that help explain why this one will take center stage.  Saying “mutiny” often conjures up images of violent insurrections in which a leader is generally overthrown and often loses their life, but our definition, courtesy of historian Alan Taylor, simply refers to soldiers who would either desert their posts or refuse to carry out their duties if their wishes weren’t met.  Such incidents became more common in the later years of the war when the deficiencies of the Continental Congress became more apparent.  The Articles of Confederation, that document that was supposed to provide a framework for which the national government could operate, did not, among other things, provide Congress with the power of taxation.  Within the context of conducting a war, troops needed to be paid because, for one, it was their job, but these men had also been promised payment, clothing, and food in exchange for their lengthy service, none of which appeared to be forthcoming.  It didn’t help that their Commander-in-Chief, General Washington, had been lobbying hard to get pensions for his officers, who often came from fairly well-to-do backgrounds, and he achieved this goal in 1780.  This provided the impetus for some ticked off men, and Pennsylvania would be the site of the first of several of these “mutinies” over pay: the first one, in early January 1781, resulted in Congressional promises of bonuses and backpay to the men.  However, a mutiny in New Jersey later that month would cause the much sterner General Washington to enforce a strict punishment: 12 mutineers were made to act as the firing squad to two individuals who were deemed the “ringleaders.”  These certainly would prove troubling to a nation that sought legitimacy as a republic and tried to distance themselves from tyranny.

Act II: Moderate John

Admittedly, I first became aware of John Dickinson due to Zeljko Ivanek’s portrayal of him, and his complex role in the Continental Congress, in the HBO miniseries John Adams.  Narratively, he mainly serves as a counterbalance to the more zealous title character, and sometimes comes off as more of an antihero.  To understand his relevance to our story, that of an executive forced to deal with the prospect of a severe military mutiny, we’ll touch upon his pre-Revolutionary service to better understand his unique perspectives.

Born in Maryland in 1732, his family would move to Delaware in his youth, but he would be associated with Pennsylvania, and more distinctly, Philadelphia, something he had in common with fellow Congressional delegate and transplanted Philadelphian, Benjamin Franklin.  He was one of nine children, and thus left his family home at age 18 to seek a life in Philadelphia, the largest and most cosmopolitan of all cities in Britain's mainland North American colonies.  His move to Philadelphia would be for the purpose of studying the law, that noble profession which so many prominent young men would engage in during this time, if they had the means and the time.  He would also spend several years studying in London, giving him another characteristic in common with Benjamin Franklin.  Admitted to the bar in 1757, he would begin what was likely to be a long and successful legal career, one that would earn him a fair amount of money and a nice-sized Delaware estate.  However, as was the case with so many at the time, the brewing trouble with England would intervene and push his life in a vastly different direction.  He first arrived on the “national” scene, if we can use this phrase, in the late 1760’s when the passage of the Townshend Acts prompted him to write a pamphlet titled Letters from a Pennsylvania Farmer.  Bear in mind that, by this time, colonials had just been through the exhausting French and Indian War, had witnessed violent opposition to the proposed Stamp Act, and were considering economic boycotts as a means of protesting the most recent Parliamentary impositions.  Though he was far from a farmer himself, Dickinson’s letters spoke to a broad audience who were seemingly looking to go about their lives.  He wrote of petitioning the English government as the best means of repealing the Townshend Acts, placing him in stark contrast to the violent actions of the Sons of Liberty. In his massive tome on the American Revolution, The Glorious Cause, Robert Middlekauf describes the tone as “meek” even bordering on “submissive.”  Dickinson also essentially called for increased self-reliance as a means of reducing the demand for British goods, thereby potentially leading to repeal of the laws.  His talents with the pen, specifically in composing these essays, would earn the politically-active John Dickinson the title of “Penman of the Revolution.”

If he is remembered at all, Dickinson is most likely remembered as a thorn in the side of John Adams when the time came to vote on a Declaration of Independence, although a close second-place might well be his insistence on pushing peaceful measures with England as a means of avoiding war.  As a prominent Philadelphia resident, Dickinson would serve in both the First and Second Continental Congresses in the mid-1770’s.  As the Second Continental Congress sought to avoid further conflict following the battles of Lexington and Concord, he was the primary author of what became known as the Olive Branch Petition, that pamphlet carrying peaceful overtones that famously was rejected by King George III before he even read it.  His opposition to full independence prior to July 1776 has also posthumously earned him the label of, among other things, a “cautious conservative.”  His hesitation towards a full break with England was previewed in his Letters back in the late 1760’s as he referred to the colonies as “parts of a Whole,” and foresaw that, if separated from the metaphorical body, they would “bleed at every vein.”  This imagery was also on display as the debates over independence hurtled forward in 1776, with Dickinson not only informing Adams that pursuing a course of war would leave the New England delegates with “blood…on their heads,” but he also threatened to “break off from you in New England and …carry on the opposition by ourselves in our own way!”  Yet when the vote came, he understood where the winds were blowing, so he sat out the official vote so that independence could be unanimously declared…and then he rode off to serve in a company of the Delaware militia.  With the die cast, Dickinson stood firmly on the side of the young United States.

Act III: A New Confederation

So, John Dickinson was wealthy, smart, well-respected, and was willing to physically fight for independence from Great Britain.  How does it come to be that he played a role in quelling a near-mutiny of the Continental Army?  We’ll save that for next act…for now, we’ll spend Act III looking at how Dickinson spent the rest of the war, and namely, the contribution that he should arguably be most well-known for.

Yes, John Dickinson was a Brigadier General in the militia and rode off to New York to help forestall the British invasion, being only one of two attendees at the First Continental Congress to take up arms against the Redcoats (the other being the gentleman from Virginia, George Washington).  However, the respect afforded him by Philadelphia society for his moderate positions was not extended from soldiers on the front, so he resigned after only a few months of service.  He stayed out of politics for the next several years, serving again in 1777, losing his Philadelphia home to the Continental Army when they needed a hospital, and his Delaware property, which the British had burned.  However, before all of this, and while the more well-known Declaration of Independence was written, John Dickinson served as the Chairman of the committee that was tasked with authoring what we call the Articles of Confederation.  It stood to reason that independence would need to be declared by a nation, and said nation would require a framework in which they would operate.  Therefore, Dickinson was not only the leader of this committee that included men such as Samuel Adams and Roger Sherman, but he also wrote the first draft of this document.  By and large, the genesis of the Articles of Confederation can be traced back to the start of last season and the Albany Plan of Union proposed by Benjamin Franklin and endorsed by Thomas Hutchinson.  This was over two decades later, but a type of union of the thirteen colonies was finally on the horizon.

I say a “type” of union because, even though the official name of the document was “The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union,” the result wasn’t so much of a “union” as much as a “collection of states who acted as they pleased.”  This wasn’t really what Dickinson had in mind, and as our first three episodes of this season will focus on individuals whose actions highlighted deficiencies in this first government, we’ll attempt to isolate the intentions of the “Penman of the Revolution” in this initial draft.  Similar to the debates over the Constitution in the late 1780’s, which will grab our attention at the same time we learn about Roger Sherman, the so-called Dickinson Draft was debated by the Second Continental Congress and ratified in November 1776, with Dickinson being absent from the debates due to his aforementioned duties of serving in the militia.  A moderate through and through, Dickinson really attempted to balance the interests of who would later be termed “Federalists” and “Anti-Federalists;” in other words, those who believed in the concept of a strong and robust national government versus those who believed that state governments should remain the source of most power in the nation.  Yet, Dickinson’s version began with the intention that the “Colonies unite themselves so as never to be divided by any Act whatever,” which was certainly a radical statement coming from the lawyer, let alone from anyone in summer 1776.  Bear in mind that, revolutionary as the Declaration of Independence was, it began by acknowledging the “thirteen united States of America,” “united” being lower case, “States” beginning with a capital “S,” and “thirteen” stressing the individuality of each former colony.  To declare that they were “never to be divided” was a stretch for so many in the Congress, so it was changed to declare that “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence.”  This was just the first example of how John Dickinson’s vison would be altered by men who, admittedly, were attempting to avoid the creation of a tyrannical government that would bear any resemblance to that of Great Britain. 

The Articles of Confederation have been posthumously ridiculed as a failure since the long-term result was the dissolution of the Confederation and the ratification of the United States Constitution.  However, Dickinson’s work certainly laid the groundwork for debates that would surround the push for a stronger union.  For instance, Dickinson’s original proposal, which was enacted, was that the Confederation Congress would permit each state one singular vote regardless of population size.  This placated the smaller states, but larger states like Virginia and Pennsylvania believed that this would provide more power to smaller states, whose delegates would thus carry more weight.  This must have been quite the conundrum for Dickinson, who owned property in Delaware and could count it as his “home,” but also had strong ties to Philadelphia.   Regardless, this proposal passed, with part of Article V reading, “In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote.”  Lines had certainly been drawn between large and small states, and that’s not to mention the lines between states who had large slave populations and those who didn’t; bear in mind that nearly every state allowed slavery, but those in the geographic South had slave populations that were much larger compared to those in the North.  Dickinson would himself free his 37 slaves in 1777, but this wasn’t the reality for a majority of slaveholding Americans at the time.  His initial proposal to pay for war, and by extension the concept of “taxation,” involved each state contributing to a common fund “in proportion to the Number of Inhabitants of every Age, Sex and Quality, except Indians,” which set off a fierce debate on the legal status of enslaved individuals.  This language was changed to read that each state would contribute money “in proportion to the value of all land within each state,” so the issue was avoided altogether.  Still, Dickinson’s initial proposal sought to justify a national government while also basing taxation on state population: bear in mind that Congress was afforded no power of taxation in the final ratified Articles, and as these are just a few examples of what was altered within the original Dickinson Draft, it’s little wonder that he sought a reprieve from politics after leaving the Second Continental Congress.

Act IV: The Mutiny

This brings us to the “main event:” the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, or the concept of military mutinies in general.  So how is it that John Dickinson factors into this supposed attempt to overthrow the Confederation Congress?  Well, the events that occurred under this moniker during the early 1780’s, or the later years of the Revolution, were the result of events that had been brewing for some time.    

Though each occurred separately and involved a divergence of specific reasons for their happening, overall, several major themes present themselves.  Most of the mutinies boil down to the treatment that the soldiers in the Continental Army received, and the lack of power that the Confederation Congress had to alleviate any of these concerns.  Food was always scarce, clothing was sparse, and pay for one’s service was virtually non-existent.  Recall Joseph Plumb Martin, that “common” soldier from episode 2.11 last season, who, like so many others, had a choice of enlisting for either three years or until the war was over.  Many in 1777 assumed that the war wouldn’t stretch on another three years, so they decided on the “until the war is over” option, although the wording of their enlistment made it vague as to when one’s service actually ended.  Its continuation into the 1780’s, combined with the lack of resources, only added to the misery.  Furthermore, the soldiers themselves often came from the lowest rungs of America’s socioeconomic ladder since those with landed property tended to serve in the militia, if they served at all.  This made the differences between the enlistees and their officers, who were forming their own type of pseudo-aristocracy to be continued on at war’s end, even more dramatic.  The mutiny of a company of 200 New Jersey soldiers wasn’t the first such occurrence, but previous leniency shown towards the prior mutineers demonstrated to General Washington that a firm line must be taken: several mutineers were positioned to shoot the leaders of the mutiny firing-squad style, but Washington relented at the last minute.  However, the point was made: do your duty, or there will be consequences.  The Newburgh Conspiracy, which occurred several year later in spring 1783, was different as it was the officers who aired their grievances and even threatened force to get what they wanted.  Washington had to attend a meeting of the potential conspirators to eliminate the threat, but the problems really lay at the seat of the new Confederation government in the halls of Congress.

So where was John Dickinson amidst all this military turmoil?  His self-imposed exile from politics ended in the early 1780’s when he was almost unanimously elected as President of Delaware by the Delaware General Assembly; as a recently-elected member of this legislative body, he had a say in this, and was the only person to vote against himself; it seems as though his reluctance to engage politically was still at play.  However, his popularity and respect amongst his political peers seems to have trumped his personal wishes because on his last day as President of Delaware, which was November 7, 1782, he was elected as President of Pennsylvania.  It’s a confusing set of circumstances in which Delaware and Pennsylvania used to have the same president, but regardless, his focus now shifted to Pennsylvania.  The Philadelphia Mutiny of 1783, as it has now become known, had been historically overshadowed by the Newburgh Conspiracy, but its results would reverberate into the years of the new republic.  The contingent of soldiers who marched on Philadelphia in June 1783 threatened the Confederation Congress, who were bungling the process of demobilizing the Army and still had not provided the soldiers with the well-earned back pay that they had deserved.  Although Dickinson enjoyed the respect of other politicians, his reputation among the people was stained from his refusal to sign the Declaration of Independence, as well as his decision to formally place his name forward for election to the Pennsylvania Council while serving as Delaware’s President.  Dickinson understood that he needed to handle the situation properly given how the masses currently viewed him as well as the uneasy tensions that had led to previous rebellions.  A delegation that included Congressman Alexander Hamilton requested that Dickinson call up the militia to put down the mutiny; he refused to do so.  The next week, Dickinson met with the subject of next week’s episode, Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris, who repeated this request: Dickinson again turned him down on behalf of the Council. 

The end result?  Congress left Philadelphia for Princeton, New Jersey, the first of what would be a total of four moves within a span of about two years.  So why had Dickinson refused the request to call in the militia?  Well, it appears as though he believed that the militia may join the conspirators, and he didn’t want matters to turn violent.  In effect, he maintained that moderate attitude that he displayed at the outset of the Revolution.  However, his actions were blamed for Philadelphia losing out on becoming the capital of the United States; indeed, as we shall see at the end of this season, it served only as a temporary capital of the new nation as a new federal city would be constructed for this specific purpose.  Had Dickinson called in the militia, there most certainly would have been violence, and the inability of Congress to control the military would have been even more exposed given that a state would have resolved this issue.  As it stood, John Dickinson avoided conflict: something he already sought to do with his refusal to support, or even vote on, the Declaration of Independence.  Even though he would be present in Philadelphia during that pivotal summer of 1787 when delegates sought to reframe the direction of their nation, he would become more of a footnote of the Revolutionary and early Republican era, rather than being remembered as the driving force of a more moderate attitude amongst a band of radicals.

Keep in mind that this is not only the first episode of season three, but the first of a three-episode mini-arc exploring problems that the United States was experiencing that were holdovers from the Revolution.  In our next episode of History: Beyond the Textbook, we’ll examine Robert Morris, early America’s moneyman, who sought to establish the United States on firm financial ground by chartering the Bank of North America.