Quaker Constitutionalism and the Political Thought of John Dickinson by Jane E. Calvert

Abstract

John Dickinson has been an enigma for most historians of the American Revolutionary period, who have had a hard time reconciling his role as the "penman" of the American Revolution with his refusal to sign the Declaration of Independence. Further complicating matters was his active participation on the battlefield during the war, after he refused to call for independence. Jane Calvert has finally solved the puzzle by focusing on the influence of Quakerism in Dickinson's unique constitutional theory. In the process of explaining Dickinson, she has offered insight into the influence of the Society of Friends on U.S. constitutional history, as well as American reform from colonial times to the twentieth century.