Thomas McKean

Biography

Thomas McKean was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, the son of Letitia Finney and William McKean. His father was an innkeeper and a farmer, but after the death of his wife Letitia in 1742, William became an alcoholic and could not take care of his family. Eight-year-old Thomas was sent to board at the home of the founder of the New London Academy, Delaware’s first public school. George Read and John Dickinson would also attend this “free school,” and Read and McKean became good friends. When his education ended, in 1750 McKean moved in with his uncle, an affluent lawyer, and began to study law with Finney’s son. He was admitted to the Delaware bar in 1754 at the age of twenty. He then went abroad to study at the Middle Temple in London. On his return to America, he practiced law not only in Delaware but in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

McKean was an ambitious man and by the age of 18 he had entered the political world of Delaware, becoming the recorder for the probate of wills in New Castle County. At 22 he was a deputy attorney general of Sussex County, and by 1765, a justice of the peace. He was elected to the Delaware legislature in 1762, and served until 1779. He was a member of the colony’s “country party,” the minority party made up primarily of Scotch-Irish residents. Unlike the dominant “court party,” McKean’s group were early supporters of resistance to Britain rather than reconciliation. His political affiliation set him in opposition to his old friend George Read and made him an ally of Caesar Rodney.

McKean attended the Stamp Act Congress in 1765. Here his radicalism set him at odds with the more cautious members who did not want to sign the Congress’s Memorial of Rights and Grievances. He challenged Timothy Ruggles, the president of the Congress so vigorously that his opponent challenged him to a duel. Fortunately, Ruggles left the next morning and no duel took place.

McKean helped to organize Delaware’s resistance to the Townshend Acts only a few years later. He would lead Delaware’s movement to declare independence from Britain a few weeks before the Continental Congress issued its Declaration. Although by 1776 McKean was living in Philadelphia, he was elected to serve as a Delaware delegate to the Second Continental Congress. Here, the always observant John Adams described him as “one of the three men in the Continental Congress who appeared to me to see more clearly to the end of the business than any others in the body.”

Although McKean’s two Delaware colleagues signed the Declaration of Independence, on August 2, McKean seemed to have been absent when this signing took place. In 1796 he challenged the idea that he had not signed when the other delegates did. “[T]he fact is,” he insisted, “that I was a member of congress for the state of Delaware, was personally present in congress, and voted in favor of independence on the 4th of July 1776, and signed the declaration after it had been engrossed on parchment, where my name, in my own hand writing, still appears.” Despite this, most historians believe that he, along with five other delegates, did not sign until months—or, in his case, years— following the August date.

McKean had likely left the Congress before the August signing to join the Pennsylvania militia as a colonel. He was with Washington’s army when it failed to successfully defend New York from a British takeover.

Meanwhile, the conservatives in the Delaware General Assembly refused to reelect McKean or Rodney to the Continental Congress in October of 1776. But by 1777, McKean was once again a delegate and he helped draft the Articles of Confederation. He served in Congress until 1781.

By 1777 McKean was chief justice of Pennsylvania, a position he held until 1799. When the US Constitution came before the voters for ratification, McKean was a member of Pennsylvania’s ratifying convention, voting for the more-empowered federal government that replaced the Confederation. In a speech to the state convention, he spoke passionately in the constitution’s favor. “The objection of this constitution,” he said, “having been answered, and all done away, it remains pure and unhurt; and this alone is a forcible argument of its goodness” adding that “The law, sir, has been my study from my infancy, and my only profession. I have gone through the circle of offices, in the legislative, executive, and judicial departments of the government; and from all my study, observation and experience, I must declare that from a full examination and due consideration of this system, it appears to the best the world has yet seen.”

Although his stance marked him as a supporter of the Federalist party, by 1796 his opposition to the party’s domestic policies and its preference for alliance with Britain rather than France led him to join the Jeffersonian Republicans. In 1799 he was elected as a Jeffersonian to the governorship of Pennsylvania and served three terms in office. While governor, he ousted Federalists from office, but by his third term, he had fallen out with local Jeffersonians and began to appoint Federalists to positions in his government. This led to his impeachment in 1807, but his allies prevented a trial from occurring.

McKean retired from politics in 1808 and spent his retirement years in Philadelphia, writing and relishing the wealth he had acquired through real estate and other investments. He died in 1817 at the age of 83. With his death, only five other signers of the Declaration remained alive.