John Dickinson and the American Revolution: The Villain as Hero or the Patriot as Pragmatist
John Dickinson has typically been vilified by historians as a hidebound conservative who did everything possible to thwart the drive for independence-the only delegate at the Continental Congress, as Thomas Jefferson famously noted, who refused to sign the Declaration of Independence. But what if this account is completely wrong? Seeing Dickinson's story from a different perspective not only rescues an essential founding father from the dustbin of history but also provides a more nuanced way to understand the Revolution itself.