"THERE WAS NO AMERICAN MORE RESPONSIBLE FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE THAN JOHN DICKINSON": FIRST EDITION OF THE WRITINGS OF FOUNDING FATHER DICKINSON, PENMAN OF THE REVOLUTION

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) DICKINSON, John. The Political Writings of John Dickinson, Esquire. Wilmington: Bonsal and Niles, 1801. Two volumes. Octavo, contemporary full brown tree calf, later red and black morocco spine labels.

First edition of the first collection of revolutionary and constitutional works by Founding Father John Dickinson, featuring his incendiary Farmer's Letters, written in opposition to the Stamp Act, and the 1775 Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms—co-authored with Jefferson—as well as Dickinson's Late Regulations, Olive Branch Petition and much more, with Subscriber's List including the names of Jefferson and Madison, scarce in contemporary tree calf.

Founding Father John Dickinson was a leading member of the Stamp Act Congress and the Continental Congress, and is widely heralded as the Penman of the Revolution. Dickinson was "not only the leading spokesman for the American position but also a leading creator of that position… Until 1776, his writings had made him better known by his fellow countrymen than any American except Franklin" (Webking, 41-2). Dickinson authored "many of the major documents that guided the American Revolution from the Stamp Act Congress through the Second Continental Congress" (Bregman, 9). With Americans seething over passage of the Stamp Act, it was Dickinson who leapt to the defense of American rights. His Farmer's Letters, prominently featured in this scarce first edition, was "the most popular pamphlet of the 1760s" (Wood, American Revolution, 32), and fundamentally "shaped the spirit of the Revolution" (Bradford, Better Guide, 40). With that work, Dickinson examined "Parliament's power with greater acuity than any writer had shown before" (Bailyn, 215). "Excepting the political essays of Thomas Paine, which did not begin to appear until nine years later, none equaled the Farmer's Letters in immediate celebrity and in direct power upon events" (Grolier, American 100:13).

Even when facing unpopularity for his refusal to sign the Declaration, in the belief that the colonies "were not prepared to win a battle against the mother country, there was no American more responsible for American independence than John Dickinson" (Webking, 41). In early works such as Late Regulations (1765), Dickinson had already predicted that Britain's oppression of the colonies would drive them towards, rather than from, independence. In truth, his fabled cautionary stance against the Declaration was founded on a belief that if America lost the Revolution, its vital ideals might also be lost. This ability to urge restraint in view of the Declaration's vital importance to human history is found even in the first work of this collection— Dickinson's May 24, 1764 Speech to the Pennsylvania Assembly. There he warns: "the best intentions may be disappointed by too rapid a prosecution of them." Ultimately, as these foundational writings show, "Dickinson encourages constant vigilance in the name of individual rights, constant questioning of the uses of governmental authority and a constant willingness to resist uses of the power of government… When it comes to conserving liberty, Dickinson was a radical thinker indeed. Dickinson himself makes the point clearly in a passage he contributed to the Continental Congress's Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms of 1775 [co-authored with Jefferson]: "We are reduced to the alternative of choosing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force.— The latter is our choice… Honour, justice and humanity forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive us" (Webking, 60). Volume I containing Dickinson's May 24, 1764 Speech to the Pennsylvania Assembly; Late Regulations (1765); Rough Draft of the Resolves of the First Congress (1765); Address to the Committee of Correspondence in Barbadoes (1766); Farmer's Letters to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies (1767-8), and Essay on the Constitutional Power of Great Britain over the Colonies in America (1774). Volume II containing the October 26, 1774 Address of Congress to the Inhabitants of Quebec; Declaration on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775); Second Petition of Congress [i.e. Olive Branch Petition, 1775]; Address of Congress… on the Present Situation of Affairs (1779), and Letters of Fabius, in 1788, on the Federal Constitution; and in 1797, on the Present Situation of Public Affairs. Volume II also containing an extensive appendix, errata leaf, and the 12-page Subscribers list, which includes Founding Fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Sabin 20048. Howes D331. Shaw & Shoemaker 413. Gephart 13217.

Text generally fresh with occasional edge-wear and toning; expert restoration to joints, spine ends and extremities of contemporary tree calf boards. A handsome copy.