March 19, 1734 – Birth of Thomas McKean, Founding Father and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

Thomas McKean was born in Pennsylvania on this day in history. Both of his parents came to Pennsylvania from Ireland as children.

McKean began to study law at the age of 16 and started serving in political and judicial positions in 1756 in both Delaware and Pennsylvania, one year after passing the bar.

McKean attended the Continental Congress of 1765 as a representative of Delaware. McKean proposed the voting procedure that the Continental Congress later adopted: that each colony, regardless of size or population, have one vote. This decision set the precedent; the Congress of the Articles of Confederation adopted the practice; and the principle of state equality continued with the composition of the United States Senate.

In spite of his primary residence in Philadelphia, McKean remained the effective leader for American independence in Delaware. Along with George Read and Caesar Rodney, he was one of Delaware’s delegates to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the Second Continental Congress in 1775 and 1776.

Thomas McKean, painted by Charles Willson Peale

Being an outspoken advocate of independence, McKean’s was a key voice in persuading others to vote for a split with Great Britain. After the vote in favor of independence on July 2, McKean participated in the debate over the wording of the official Declaration of Independence, which was approved on July 4.

A few days after McKean cast his vote, he left Congress to serve in the Revolutionary War. Being away, he was not available when most of the Founders signed the Declaration of Independence on August 2, 1776. It is assumed that he signed after that date, possibly as late as 1781.

McKean helped draft the Articles of Confederation and voted for their adoption on March 1, 1781. When poor health caused Samuel Huntington to resign as President of Congress in July 1781, McKean was elected as his successor. He served from July 10, 1781, until November 4, 1781. The President of Congress was a mostly ceremonial position with no real authority, but the office did require McKean to handle a good deal of correspondence and sign official documents. During his time in office, Lord Cornwallis’s British army surrendered at Yorktown, effectively ending the war.

McKean started his long tenure as Chief Justice of Pennsylvania on July 28, 1777, and served in that capacity until 1799. There he largely set the rules of justice for revolutionary Pennsylvania. According to biographer John Coleman, in Thomas McKean, Forgotten Leader of the Revolution, 1984:

. . . only the historiographical difficulty of reviewing court records and other scattered documents prevents recognition that McKean, rather than John Marshall, did more than anyone else to establish an independent judiciary in the United States. As chief justice under a Pennsylvania constitution he considered flawed, he assumed it the right of the court to strike down legislative acts it deemed unconstitutional, preceding by ten years the U.S. Supreme Court’s establishment of the doctrine of judicial review. He augmented the rights of defendants and sought penal reform, but on the other hand was slow to recognize expansion of the legal rights of women and the processes in the state’s gradual elimination of slavery.”

McKean was a member of the convention of Pennsylvania which ratified the Constitution of the United States. In the Pennsylvania State Constitutional Convention of 1789/90, he argued for a strong executive and was himself a Federalist. Nevertheless, in 1796, dissatisfied with Federalist domestic policies and compromises with Great Britain, he became an outspoken Jeffersonian Republican or Democratic-Republican.

McKean was elected Governor of Pennsylvania and served three terms from December 17, 1799, until December 20, 1808. At first, McKean ousted Federalists from state government positions and so he has been called the father of the spoils system. However, in seeking a third term in 1805, McKean was at odds with factions of his own Democratic-Republican Party, and forged an alliance with Federalists. Afterwards, he began removing Jeffersonians from state positions.

McKean worked on expanding free education for all and, at age eighty, led a Philadelphia citizens group to organize a strong defense during the War of 1812. He spent his retirement in Philadelphia, writing, discussing political affairs and enjoying the considerable wealth he had earned through investments and real estate.

McKean was a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati in 1785 and was subsequently its vice-president. Princeton College gave him the degree of L.L.D. in 1781, Dartmouth College presented the same honor in 1782, and the University of Pennsylvania gave him the degree of A.M. in 1763 and L.L.D. in 1785. With Professor John Wilson he published Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States in 1790. McKean died in Philadelphia in 1817.