When John Adams was a delegate to the Continental Convention in Philadelphia he happened to meet an obscure attorney whom he described in a letter to Abigail as the “Stamp Man”—a decade old reference to the Stamp Act passed by Parliament in 1765. The man in question was Jared Ingersoll. At the time you couldn’t [...]
Like many emigrants hitting the shores of America, Thomas FitzSimons’s name often received creative spellings. Though he capitalized the “s” in the middle of his name—as it appears on the Constitution—others often spelled his name as Fitzsimons and Fitzsimmons. But as a proud son of Ireland, FitzSimon proudly kept the old family spelling. Born in [...]
Thomas Mifflin’s story is one of tragedies of the American founding. Born on January 10, 1744, into a wealth Philadelphia family, Mifflin would play an important role in the Revolution, increase his wealth, and die in disgrace. Mifflin attended what would become known as the University of Pennsylvania and, like many wealthy sons of America, [...]
If you look at the bottom left-hand corner of the United States Constitution, next to the official signatures, you’ll discover a fortieth signature—a signature of a signer who wasn’t a signer. It reads: “Attest William Jackson Secretary.” Jackson was born in 1759 on the boarder lands of England and Scotland. After the death of his [...]
Yesterday I posted an article at The Black Sphere addressing the issue of liberty and security—“The Unanswered Question of the Boston Bombings: Liberty or Security?” In that piece I decried the fact that too few of our fellow citizens are willing to discuss an important question: Where does the good of security tread on the [...]
A good beginning is no guarantee of a good ending. This has always been true, regardless of when or where you live. It was certainly true in Jonathan Dayton’s life. Dayton was born on October 16, 1760, in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Dayton’s early years, like so many in colonial New Jersey before the Revolutionary War [...]
Most of the Founding Fathers were men of means—the cream of their colonies—wealthy and privileged. This included the famous and the not so famous. Only a handful were men of meager means, and William Paterson was among them. But he wouldn’t stay there. The son of a shop keeper, some say a door-to-door salesman, Paterson [...]
David Brearley, the New Jersey delegate to the Constitutional Convention, made one of the most goofy proposals during the convention. But he also sat on the one of the most influential committees during the convention. Born in 1745, in Spring Grove, New Jersey, Brearley was one of five children. His father was a landowner, but [...]
Almost every man who signed the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were lawyers. And William Livingston was no different, though he didn’t choose the law . . . it was chosen for him. Livingston, the fifth of nine children, grew up on the banks of the Hudson River in New York, among the [...]
