Season 2, Episode 12 | John Dickinson: The Reluctant Revolutionary Who Shaped a Nation

In this Independence Day episode of This Constitution, Matthew Brogdon is joined by Dr. Jane Calvert, Director of the John Dickinson Writings Project and author of Penman of the Revolution. Together, they explore the legacy of John Dickinson, one of America’s most influential yet often overlooked founders.

Best known for Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, Dickinson was a leading advocate for colonial rights but notably opposed the rush toward independence. Jane explains how Dickinson’s belief in natural rights, his cautious approach to revolution, and his commitment to unity positioned him as both a voice of reason and a strategic architect of America’s founding.

Matthew and Jane dive into Dickinson's critical contributions to the Articles of Confederation, his overlooked role in shaping early American foreign policy, and how he continued to influence the nation, leading troops, freeing enslaved people, and playing a vital part in the Constitutional Convention.

If you think the American Revolution was driven only by firebrands and radicals, this episode will challenge that view and reveal how one of the most cautious founders helped lay the foundation for American independence and unity.

In This Episode

• (00:00:37) Introduction 
• (00:00:27) Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania
• (00:01:22) Sources of rights: British law vs. natural rights
• (00:03:45) Dickinson’s ambivalence toward independence
• (00:06:20) Colonial status and constitutional debates
• (00:07:21) Dickinson’s views on Parliament, trade, and executive power
• (00:11:08) The onset of war and Dickinson’s role in Congress
• (00:12:23) The Olive Branch Petition and the Declaration of Taking Up Arms
• (00:17:10) Dickinson’s strategic use of time and preparation for war
• (00:19:29) Dickinson’s leadership in the Pennsylvania militia and committees
• (00:20:36) Congressional debates: diplomacy, union, and independence
• (00:21:58) Dickinson’s position on independence and committee work
• (00:24:01) Drafting the Articles of Confederation and the Model Treaty
• (00:29:10) Dickinson’s post-Declaration statesmanship
• (00:31:51) Dickinson’s role in the Federal Convention and later life
• (00:35:36) Conclusion and legacy

Notable Quotes

• (02:32) "Dickinson was one of the earliest people who said, actually, that is not right. Our rights are not bestowed upon us by any kind of paper or parchment. They come to us from God" — Jane Calvert
• (05:51) "Understand that  from the vantage point of the 1760s and early 1770s, the safest course for securing rights was within the confines of the British Constitution." — Jane Calvert
• (06:28) “The British considered themselves to have a constitution. They had certain institutional relationships, just like we argue over the relationship between the President and Congress and the relationship between the federal government and the states.”— Matthew Brogdon
• (16:14) "Dickinson’s goal with the Declaration was to produce such apprehensions in the British that they would think twice about coming over here." — Jane Calvert
• (24:08) "If Dickinson had supported independence, he would have written the Declaration." — Jane Calvert
• (26:37) "The model treaty Dickinson helped draft became the blueprint for American foreign policy until World War II." — Jane Calvert
•  (26:45) "So it is a shame in a way that when we think about the Continental Congress, we often think about the Declaration of Independence and the conduct of the war. But forget some of these other crucial things that are happening and don't really happen,." — Matthew Brogdon

Transcript

Intro

[0:00:00 - 0:00:11]:
 We the people, do ordain and establish this constitution.

Matthew Brogdon

[0:00:11 - 0:00:25]:
 Welcome to This Constitution. I'm Matthew Brogdon, and we want to wish you a happy 4th of July. I'm joined today by a special guest, Jane Calvert from the John Dickinson Writings Project. Jane, it's great to welcome you to the podcast.

Jane Calvert

[0:00:25 - 0:00:27]:
 So happy to be here.

Matthew Brogdon

[0:00:27 - 0:00:43]:
 So Dickinson—I'm sure most people ran across John Dickinson at some point in their education. They associate him with the American founding, and if they know anything about John Dickinson, they probably know something about his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. What role did those letters play?

Jane Calvert

[0:00:43 - 0:01:22]:
 Well, they were the most important American document before Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and arguably without them, we would not have had a revolution.
They did several things for the American people. They were intended to educate Americans about their rights and liberties, about how to defend those rights and liberties peacefully, and taught them what it meant to be an American—that they should be unified and that they had a distinct identity from their British identity.

Matthew Brogdon

[0:01:22 - 0:02:14]:
 And one important aspect of that, when we're talking about revolutionary writings—or I guess we could say pre-revolutionary writings—this is a period when the American colonies are expressing a great deal of dissatisfaction with what Parliament is doing.
 We have things like the Stamp Act and Intolerable Acts and things of that kind coming along in sequence.
 One question that comes up in writings like Dickinson’s, especially when they're talking about rights, is: where do those rights come from?
 So a lot of writers in this period want to attribute those rights to British common law, sort of claim the rights of British citizens—really base them in English law.
 Others want to look past that and sort of anticipate a natural rights thinking—that no, my rights come from a divine origin, or come from a much deeper tradition of rights and human thinking.
 So where does Dickinson fall?

Jane Calvert

[0:02:14 - 0:03:25]:
 Absolutely correct. At the time—especially, you know, if we're thinking about, say, the Stamp Act controversy of 1765—generally Americans thought like other Britons, that their rights came to them by virtue of being English. And so they held those up and demanded them.
 But Dickinson was one of the earliest people who said, actually, that is not right. Our rights are not bestowed upon us by any kind of paper or parchment—they come to us from God.
 And he wrote this in a pamphlet in 1766, and really, that was a shocking proposition, because it suggests that the British government and the king didn't really have anything to do with it. And so that itself could be a revolutionary claim.
 Dickinson didn't mean it to be revolutionary—he actually didn’t want a revolution or independence—but he was a leading advocate of rights.
 And so he was really a main person who got the Stamp Act Congress to think in terms of natural rights, and then more Americans joined him in that.

Matthew Brogdon

[0:03:25 - 0:04:04]:
 That's fascinating. So you have the person who's advancing sort of the most robust account of rights detached from British law and rooted in human nature somehow, who also is reluctant about following through on that—reluctant about shedding British rule or pursuing independence.
 So maybe help us understand Dickinson's state of mind there. What made him ambivalent about pursuing American independence, and what made him reluctant about the revolution or moving from the sort of opposition to British policy to armed resistance?

Jane Calvert

[0:04:04 - 0:05:00]:
 So the most difficult thing that we can do—and by "we" I mean historians or the general public—is to put ourselves back in the time before the Declaration of Independence and imagine what it was like at that time.
 The revolution, the Declaration of Independence, was not inevitable—it was not a foregone conclusion. And so keeping that in mind, what Dickinson was after was protecting American rights and liberties, and he believed that the best way to do that would be under the protection of a British constitution.
 And if you look at it in a clear-eyed way, we were just a collection of disparate colonies. The only way we saw ourselves as united was through Great Britain.
 We were not allowed to manufacture anything here ourselves. We had no army. We had no way to manufacture weapons or ammunition. We had no foreign support.
 In fact, the country that would become our greatest ally was France—and in the 1760s, we were fresh off of war with France, and they were our greatest enemy.
 And so really, up until 1776, it was unthinkable that America could declare independence—let alone win.

Jane Calvert

[0:05:00 - 0:05:48]:
 And so Dickinson was aiming for rights and liberties and doing it in the way that he thought would best protect Americans—and that would not be picking a fight with the greatest military force on the planet.
 And he had some other particular concerns, but that's the big thing to understand:
 That from the vantage point of the 1760s and early 1770s, the safest course for securing rights was within the confines of the British constitution.

Matthew Brogdon

[0:06:02 - 0:07:21]:
 So that raises an interesting question, because you've talked about Dickinson's writings as advancing a sense of American identity, and at the same time a desire to find a way to secure American prosperity and American liberty under a British constitution.

So this might get into the weeds a little bit, but we didn’t just start debating constitutional law and constitutional structure in America. The British considered themselves to have a constitution. They had certain institutional relationships, just like we argue over the relationship between the President and Congress and the relationship between the federal government and the states.

There was a sort of constitutional debate over the status of the colonies within the British form of government—within the British constitution, small “c” constitution.

And that too, like disputes in America now with all of our fragmented power and institutions, raised questions about the relative control of the Crown and Parliament.

So how did Dickinson think about that? What did he see as the appropriate relationship of Parliament and the monarchy to the American colonies? What would he have wanted to see as the arrangement that he thought would secure American liberty and prosperity?

Jane Calvert

[0:07:21 - 0:08:25]:
 Well, basically, he was someone who believed that under no circumstances could Parliament be legislating for the colonies, because of course, the colonies were not represented in Parliament, and there couldn't be any legislation without consent.

But he did believe that there could be—and should be—a situation where Britain regulated American trade. That doesn't mean that it would be detrimental to Americans. There would still be a degree of free trade, but he granted Britain the right—the necessity—to regulate American trade for the good of the empire.

But really beyond that, he thought there was no way that Britain should be legislating for the colonies, interfering with the police power of the colonies, and certainly not suspending legislatures or propping up failing British companies.

And I think even he thought that Americans should be allowed to manufacture basic necessities. So really, it was a trade relationship—but not a legislative relationship.

Matthew Brogdon

[0:08:25 - 0:08:53]:
 Okay. But the relationship to the Crown—to the monarchy—would remain.
 So in a way, Dickinson's part of the camp that wants to sort of cut Parliament out of the equation with respect to the colonies, so that Parliament just makes laws for their external affairs, and then the Crown would have this sort of responsibility over the colonies as a… I guess as a chief executive?
 I mean, was that the way they thought about this at the time?

Jane Calvert

[0:08:53 - 0:09:59]:
 Not as a chief executive—that's more of a modern understanding.

What was very common among Americans was that they thought in terms of a constitutional monarchy after the Glorious Revolution, and they never really subscribed to this idea of parliamentary sovereignty.

Their relationship was with the king. But Dickinson, for one, was very suspicious of executive power. He felt—as all Americans really did at the time—loyal to the king, thought he was the best of princes, but he also knew that executive power could expand very quickly and get out of control.

So he was absolutely very concerned that there shouldn't be any kind of standing army in the colonies and was very suspicious of ministers—politicians who would, as he put it, do anything for the smiles of their princes.

And that they should always be on the lookout for the encroachment of executive power on the people.

Matthew Brogdon

[0:09:59 - 0:11:31]:
 So does that—I think it does—really describe the kind of ambivalence that people in Dickinson’s shoes at that point had, who wanted to defend the colonies against encroachment and excessive interference by the British, and found themselves in a very difficult situation.

Because you're simultaneously arguing, “Well, we don't think that Parliament should be so deeply involved in the internal affairs of the colonies because we're not represented in Parliament.”

On the other hand, clearly the king is the king, and that extends over all of the British Empire, not just over the island of Great Britain.

And at the same time, they were experiencing ambivalence toward executive power and toward the concentration of power in one set of hands—which is, you know, what monarchy represents.

So that does seem to leave folks in Dickinson's situation really trying to balance their arguments in terms of how to do this.

So let's fast forward a little bit. Against Dickinson’s wishes—depending on how you want to slice the cake—Massachusetts drags everybody into war in 1775.

That may not be entirely fair, but we're in 2025 right now, so it is the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, because of course, we get Lexington and Concord in April.

We've had some discussion of that on the podcast already that our listeners might remember, and by July of 1775—a year before the Declaration of Independence is written—we have a full-pitched battle around Boston.

Matthew Brogdon 

[0:11:31 - 0:12:21]:
 Right? You’ve had Bunker Hill, and now we have the siege of Boston with the British occupying the city, troops around it, and George Washington is going to take command of the Continental Army. So by 1775, Dickinson finds himself participating in a Continental Congress that is at war—like it or not. Given his past experience, given where he stood in terms of his reluctance to get into this fight, how does he go on to play such a leading role in the Congress? Because he is a very important delegate in the Second Continental Congress. So maybe you could help us understand how—where does he play a role there, and how does his ambivalence about armed conflict and independence shape his leadership?

Jane Calvert 

[0:12:21 - 0:15:00]:
 So I'm going to back up just a little bit. After Dickinson published The Farmer’s Letters—they appeared serially in newspapers in 1767 and early 1768, and then were published in pamphlet form—he became the undisputed leader of the resistance to Britain. He really saw independence coming as early as 1765, and so everything he was doing was trying to prevent that. At the First Continental Congress that met in 1774, his agenda dominated. And that agenda was peaceful resistance, reconciliation, trying to work things out with Britain.

Nothing had changed with his stature in 1775. So when Congress met on May 10th, Dickinson was still seen as the leader. And one thing to be clear about: he was not ambivalent about self-defense. He had always been, since he was a young man, a proponent of a strong militia. At that point, he had already begun forming the First Philadelphia Battalion of Associators, and in June he was made colonel of that, and it was officially recognized.

So when Congress met—after shots had been fired—the first thing someone, it might have been Richard Henry Lee, asked was, “What are we aiming at here, anyway? Are we aiming at independence or reconciliation?” And at that point, John Adams piped up and said, “Parliament has no business legislating for us, but loyalty to the Crown is what we owe.” So even John Adams was proclaiming himself still a loyal subject of the Crown.

Then Dickinson put forward several possible paths. They could write another petition—Congress had written one in 1774, and Dickinson had written it. They could prepare for war. Or they could send agents to negotiate. These were all debated, and it was unanimously decided that they would write another petition. It was also unanimously decided that they would prepare for war. And the motion to send agents to negotiate passed as well.

Other people tried to draft these documents, but the results were unsatisfactory. So Dickinson stepped in and wrote what became known as the Olive Branch Petition. It was a very humble plea to the Crown to intercede on their behalf with Parliament—to basically save them from Parliament. It made no claims, it demanded no rights—it was just a plea for help.

Then Thomas Jefferson had drafted a version of what became called the Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. But it was kind of meek, kind of mild. It wasn’t going to do what Dickinson wanted it to do. So Dickinson was then put on the committee, and he kind of ripped it apart and rewrote it in belligerent, bellicose language. It was rousing—it was really a motivating document. It basically said: we’re united, we’re prepared, we have foreign support, and—basically—bring it on. Those two documents passed. Both of them passed.

Matthew Brogdon 

[00:15:43]:
 So this was due—everything at once, all at the same time?

Jane Calvert 

[00:15:46 – 00:16:44]:
 Yes. The Olive Branch Petition passed on July 5th, and the Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms passed on July 6th—I think I’ve got that order correct. The declaration was then read before the newly constituted Continental Army to energize and rally the troops. The Adams cousins were very pleased with it. John Adams even said something like, “Oh, it had some mercury in it,” and that this may actually put some fear in the British. And that was Dickinson’s goal with the declaration: to produce such apprehensions in the British that they would think twice about coming over here.

It was like—if you’ve ever seen two cats before a fight, they puff up several times their size and shriek at each other, because they’re equipped with such deadly weapons that if they actually engage, it could be lethal. So, they try to avoid it. That’s what Dickinson was doing. And with the Olive Branch Petition…

Matthew Brogdon 

[00:16:44]:
 So was it—to pin you down on the Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms—does Dickinson’s draft of that, or the eventual version of it, mention independence?

Jane Calvert 

[00:16:53 – 00:18:00]:
 No. It was not about independence. It was just meant as a deterrent—as brandishing your weapons. Saber-rattling. It was meant to signal resolve to the British, but also to rouse the American troops and put them in a patriotic and martial spirit. That was the purpose behind the declaration.

Now, the Olive Branch Petition has gotten a lot of shade cast on it over the years. People say, “How could they have been so naïve to think that would work?” Of course, the King wouldn’t even entertain it—he didn’t even read it. It was dismissed. But Dickinson didn’t necessarily expect it to succeed. I think he hoped it might, but he knew the odds were low. That wasn’t the main purpose.

The real purpose was—yes, ideally, to achieve reconciliation—but more practically, it served other functions. One was legal cover for waging war and possibly declaring independence. Dickinson was a highly trained lawyer and a superb strategist, and he knew where this was headed. He understood that America needed to signal to the world that it had done all it could to resolve things peacefully. Any good lawyer would say, you must avail yourself of every peaceful option.

And maybe just as important—it was about buying time. Despite what Dickinson said in the declaration—none of it was really true. We weren’t united. We didn’t have a competent army. We had no manufacturing capacity. We had no foreign support. But we needed time to build all of that. Another petition would buy us that time. Even John Adams recognized it. He said, “Well, we kind of had to do it—because we need time to prepare.”

Jane Calvert 

[00:18:00 – 00:20:12]:
 And so when Congress disbanded, Dickinson got to work preparing. In the fall of 1775, Dickinson was arguably the most powerful individual in the colonies. Even though he was officially just a colonel of one battalion, he had effective control over the entire Pennsylvania militia. I don’t know the exact numbers, but it’s not unlikely that the Pennsylvania militia had more men under arms than Washington did in Massachusetts.

Dickinson was also on the Committee of Safety, where he led efforts to root out traitors and determine their punishment. He was writing military policy. And when it looked like New Jersey might try to strike a deal with Britain and give in to some of their demands, Congress dispatched Dickinson to lecture the New Jersey assembly and stop that from happening.

So he was stepping up war preparations, keeping wavering colonies in line, and working everywhere at once to ensure Americans stayed united on the path ahead.

Matthew Brogdon 

[00:20:12 – 00:20:30]:
 He was a busy man in ’75. Very busy. So that takes us through the fall of 1775, and I think when the Continental Congress meets again in early 1776—or whenever they come back together in the spring…

Jane Calvert
 [20:30 - 20:32]:
 It was early seven. It was January.

Matthew Brogdon
 [20:32 - 20:35]:
 It was January. So then we're January—

Jane Calvert
 [20:35 - 20:36]:
 —or February.

Matthew Brogdon
 [20:36 - 21:58]:
 Then we're sort of in the on-ramp to the Declaration of Independence, eventually coming in July. Congress is debating a number of important questions. They're really—at least as far as I can characterize it—facing three related issues, in addition to the military problem. They are fighting a war, but they also have to answer the question of international relationships, diplomacy—are they going to seek relationships with foreign countries, and of what nature? Military, commercial? Because that would suggest taking on some of the forms of independence.
 What is the relationship between the colonies—which will be states at some point—and what's the status of the Second Continental Congress? Because they're representatives of various political bodies. What are they? They're not independent states. What authority does Congress have?
 And of course, once you confront those two things, there's the question of independence itself. Can you answer diplomacy or Federal Union without answering whether we are, as the Declaration eventually put it, “free and independent states”? So how does Dickinson come down on these things? Is he still resistant to the idea of independence?

Jane Calvert
 [21:58 - 23:50]:
 Well, okay—one thing I didn’t mention from the fall of ’75, which I should have: one of the last things he did, as John Adams was helping colonies shift their governments to Republican governments, Dickinson—still a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly—wrote instructions to the delegates to Congress saying, under no circumstances should they vote on anything that would lead to independence.
 And when he wrote those, just a few days earlier, there was a sort of battle of petitions to the assembly. Quakers were petitioning against supporting the militia as pacifists, and then radicals protested that. But even those radicals still affirmed their support for the monarchy. So at that time, the majority in Pennsylvania still opposed independence.
 Those instructions remained in place until June 1776. Before any declaration could happen, Dickinson had to remove and replace them. I think what happened is that he finally saw independence was going to happen. He agreed to rewrite those instructions. Then Richard Henry Lee motioned for independence. And the next day, Dickinson presented new instructions—not saying to vote for independence, but saying delegates could vote their consciences.

Matthew Brogdon
 [23:50 - 23:52]:
 So a real legislature in that sense.

Jane Calvert
 [23:52 - 25:05]:
 Exactly. So, to your question—Dickinson had been seen as the leader of the resistance. And it’s pretty clear—historians don’t love counterfactuals—but if Dickinson had supported independence, he would’ve written the Declaration. He wrote most of the key documents for the First and Second Congress. But of course, that wasn’t going to happen.
 The Committee for the Declaration was one of three key committees. The other two addressed: (1) how the would-be states would relate to each other, and (2) foreign diplomacy. Dickinson served on those two. He drafted the Articles of Confederation, and the first key provision was that the states would be subordinate to the central government.
 He also added a religious liberty clause to preserve existing toleration, so dissenters couldn’t lose rights after independence.

Matthew Brogdon
 [25:05 - 25:09]:
 So you can’t be any worse off afterwards than you were under the British.

Jane Calvert
 [25:09 - 26:44]:
 Exactly. His main concern was persecution of Quakers.
 Now, this next thing is a relatively new discovery from my work on the John Dickinson Writings Project. The other committee was for a model treaty—a plan for future foreign treaties. The Adams Papers published a version with 33 provisions, attributing the first 13 to John Adams and the rest as copied from law books.
 But in Dickinson’s undated papers, I found a document that clearly appears to be an early draft of that treaty—10 full provisions and notes for 3 more. Adams’ version looks like a cleaned-up copy. And of course, Adams, being deeply jealous of Dickinson, wouldn’t have admitted that Dickinson had drafted it.
 That model treaty essentially became the blueprint for American foreign policy until World War II.

Matthew Brogdon
 [26:44 - 29:10]:
 Really? So it’s a shame that when we think about the Continental Congress, we often only think about the Declaration and the war, but forget some of these other crucial things. And as you point out, they didn’t really happen in sequence—they happened concurrently.
 So when Congress appoints a committee to draft a Declaration of Independence—you can go look at the journals of the Continental Congress (Library of Congress website or Quill Project)—you’ll see the same day they appointed the committee for the Declaration, they also appointed two more committees.
 One was for a plan of union, or what became the Articles of Confederation. The other was to draft the model treaty for diplomacy. It’s really quite consequential that Dickinson played such a leading role in those two.
 While the Declaration has become a kind of organic law for Americans—a creed, even—it didn’t hold that status at the time. What mattered more for policy and government function were the questions of union and diplomacy. So it’s important to recognize Dickinson’s leading role in that.
 So, thinking past the Second Continental Congress and into the new Union, we know the Revolutionary War lasted seven years (longer than World War II for Americans). Then we have four years to draft the Federal Constitution, and a few more before it becomes the new operating government.
 What is Dickinson’s statesmanship and life like after that point?

Jane Calvert
 [29:10 - 30:46]:
 Yeah, well, conventional wisdom suggests that he just faded into oblivion. But in fact, just days after the Declaration—he abstained from voting, gave an eloquent speech against it, but wanted it to be unanimous—he led his battalion to meet the British.
 After returning, he was voted back into the Pennsylvania legislature, but soon resigned in protest when they refused to amend the constitution. He returned to his Delaware plantation and did two extraordinary things.
 First, he freed all of his enslaved people—initially through conditional manumission, and then fully by 1786. Second, he enlisted in the Delaware militia as a private—unheard of for a gentleman. He may have been the wealthiest man in America at the time.
 He later served as president of Delaware, and then of Pennsylvania—at one point simultaneously—navigating an astounding array of crises.

Jane Calvert
 [30:46 - 31:00]:
 I mean, there was a civil war. There was a secession by one of the western counties. There was a potential mutiny by Continental soldiers. There was a diplomatic crisis.
 And again, he was one of the most powerful men in the country, because as president of Pennsylvania, he was also president of the Pennsylvania judiciary, which served as the United States Supreme Court.

Jane Calvert
 [31:12 - 33:01]:
 So he had just a remarkable, I mean, okay, his. Power was limited because he was the president of an executive council. So he wasn't, it wasn't a, any kind of unitary executive, but, um, but nevertheless, um, he, he had a, an incredible amount of power at that time. Um, and then after that, um, he was the chairman of the Annapolis Convention that met to discuss amending the Articles of Confederation.
 Mm-hmm. Because the version that was ratified bore no resemblance to the one he'd written. And it was. Just he, he had been wanting to, uh, amend the Articles of Confederation since, at least, since 17, uh, 83, if not before, probably before. And then he was a, an extraordinarily active participant in the federal convention and made some really key contributions.
 Including providing the solution for what we now call the Connecticut Compromise. Mm-hmm. That was Dickinson's idea. And then after that, he, um, was the president of the Delaware Constitutional Convention and his last public, uh, office was, uh, in the Delaware legislature, but then he continued to lead citizens groups and pamphlets.
 And serve as an informal, uh, advisor to Jefferson. Um, and, and as late as well, the early 19th century, he was still writing legislation for Delaware, Pennsylvania, and the United States. Mm-hmm. And, uh, in fact, people kept coming to him through all those years and begging him to run, to stand for office again.
 And he refused all times. Uh, but once and in the fall of, um, 1807, after the Chesapeake Leopard affair, he allowed himself to be convinced. To stand for office again. And he did not win. He did not win election because he was a Republican in Federalist Delaware. So he didn't he, but that's probably for the best because he, uh, died six months later.
 But right up until the very end, he was as active as could be.

Matthew Brogdon
 [33:05 - 34:29]:
 Well, it sounds like we could spend three more episodes on Dickinson's political career. Indeed. Well, it certainly is the case that as we look at his absolutely unrivaled leading role. Before the revolution in framing up the way that Americans thought about their opposition to British policy and thought about themselves as Americans with the distinctive political culture, uh, or conception of political rights and just government. Well, he didn't sign the Declaration of Independence. He certainly exerts what is an almost unparalleled influence in the Continental Congress, and as we've said, just because he withheld his pin from the declaration, he didn't withhold his hand from, you know, aiding in the winning of independence.
 Right. He actually. Plays a quite active role there, both in the government and with respect to its military service. Uh, and we do sometimes forget that he is a member of the Constitutional convention. Absolutely. Federal Convention, 1787 and he's, uh, he does play a quite important role. Delaware is of course, heavily invested in.
 And this new constitution succeeding because as you note about him serving simultaneously in Pennsylvania and Delaware, there was some ambiguity about whether Delaware really was its own. Political entity. Right. I think there were some folks in Pennsylvania who thought it was sort of part of Pennsylvania.

Jane Calvert
 [34:29 - 34:39]:
 It had been,
 yeah.
 It did not even have its own name. It was called the three Lower Counties on Delaware. That's right. And it was part of, it was owned by the Penn family up until 1776. Yeah.

Matthew Brogdon
 [34:39 - 35:00]:
 Yeah. And so, uh, when the Constitution is proposed, it was very Torry ridden. That's right. Well, and, uh, very eager to ratify the Constitution,

Jane Calvert
 [35:00 - 35:01]:
 Which is largely owing to Dickinson. I, they, they barely,

Matthew Brogdon
 [35:01 - 35:03]:
 I don't know how long their Ratifying convention met, but I think it was about a minute. Yeah.

Jane Calvert
 [35:03 - 35:05]:
 Before they said, yes, that's

Matthew Brogdon
 [35:05 - 36:01]:
 about right. We want this constitution. This is perfect. Yeah.
 So it's good that we've been able to recover a more comprehensive view of Dickinson's contribution to the founding and indeed, you know, by any test in terms of, you know, which of the key episodes in the founding of the American Union.
 That a person participate in and contribute to. There doesn't seem to be many other figures that can boast this kind of career. At the center of the American founding, at the center of the key moments of, uh, the creation of the American Union. The American Republic. So thank you for helping us understand that.
 This has just been a lovely conversation. I've learned so much. I hope our viewers have,

Jane Calvert
 [36:01 - 36:00]:
 I hope so. And, uh, if they would like more, they can pick up my new biography of Dickinson Penman of the Founding.  I have to say that I learned a lot from writing it. I had no idea how ubiquitous Dickinson was until I wrote that. So hopefully your listeners will find it also enlightening.

Matthew Brogdon
 [35:07 - 36:05]:
 I'm sure they will.

 Outro

 [36:05 - 36:50]:

The Constitution is more than Parchman under glass at the National Archives. It's a blueprint for American self-government that shapes every part of our civic life from the rights we cherish to the laws we live under. We explore the ongoing battle over the meaning and relevance of America's founding document.

 This constitution will equip you to engage the most pressing political questions of our time. Join us every two weeks as we hash out constitutional questions together. This podcast is ordained and established by the Center for Constitutional Studies at Utah Valley University, the home of Utah's civic thought and leadership initiative.