John Dickinson and the Quartering Act: Historic Lesson on Freedom

John Dickinson was a lawyer in Philadelphia and eventually a governor of Pennsylvania and Delaware. He is most remembed as one of our nation's great constitutional leaders as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

After he retired to farming in a very peaceful estate in Pennsylvania where he loved his books and tranquil life, he became a strong advocate for the increase of rights and freedom among "British America." In one of his letters to the colonies he wrote in 1767 he sought to wake the colonist from their slumber as to the dangers of England's tyranny when the mother country had shut down the parliament of New York after they had refused to quarter British troops in the time of peace. Though this did not effect Pennsylvania in general or Dickinson in particular, he sought to alert the other 12 colonies to this grave abuse of power by letting them know that what England did to New York they could do it to anyone.

Dickinson's warning is important because it demonstrates that when freedom is encroached on others who are remote from us, we must be aware that those very freedoms can be lost to any of us. When freedom is attacked in one way it can be attacked in all ways. If freedom is not understood as an "inalienable right" from God, then it is reduced to a privilege which is bestowed by the state. It is then very insecure because the very source of freedom is denied.