Editor’s note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The University of West Florida will mark Constitution Day this year with a lecture from Dr. Jane E. Calvert, a historian and award-winning author who is the nation’s leading expert on John Dickinson. Calvert is the founding director of the John Dickinson Writings Project and the author of "Penman of the Founding" (Oxford, 2024), the first complete biography of Dickinson. Ahead of her appearance in Pensacola, she spoke with WUWF about Dickinson’s legacy and what it means for American democracy today.
T.S. Strickland: Many listeners may not be familiar with John Dickinson. Who was he, and why is he sometimes called the “Penman of the Revolution”?
Jane E. Calvert: Most people haven’t heard of John Dickinson, so no one should feel bad about that. But in his time, he was America’s first celebrity. His Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania made him famous across the colonies and even in Europe. By the First and Second Continental Congresses, he was the most powerful man in America… admired for his leadership and writing. He’s less known today largely because he refused to sign the Declaration of Independence.
Strickland: Why did he withhold his signature?
Calvert: Simply put, he thought America wasn’t ready. We had almost no Army, no Navy, no means of producing weapons, and we weren’t unified. Dickinson believed independence would eventually come, but wanted it without bloodshed. On a deeper level, his Quaker upbringing shaped his views. Though not formally a member of the Society of Friends, he absorbed their principles: preserving unity, resolving disagreements peacefully, and protecting religious liberty. He worried that severing ties with Britain would jeopardize Pennsylvania’s constitution, which granted dissenters like Quakers greater freedom of conscience than they enjoyed in England.
Q: Your John Dickinson Writings Project has uncovered new material. What have you found?
Calvert: Dickinson is the only major founder whose writings had never been collected and published in full. Since 2010, we’ve been assembling them, and the discoveries are astounding. We’ve found evidence of a broader understanding of rights—closer to human rights. He freed the people he enslaved, authored abolition proposals in Delaware, and argued slavery should not be part of the union. He also drafted a clause in the Articles of Confederation protecting “his or her religion”… effectively securing women’s religious liberty and, for Quaker women who preached, their right to public speech. It may have been the most revolutionary moment of the Revolution. Unfortunately, that clause was cut from the final document.
Strickland: You’ve written about Dickinson’s connection to two key tools: peaceful civil disobedience and the amendable written constitution. Why are those important?
Calvert: Quakers pioneered both. They practiced civil disobedience long before the term existed—peacefully ignoring unjust laws, at great personal cost. They also insisted on written constitutions with amendment clauses, so laws could evolve as new truths emerged. Dickinson applied those lessons. In response to the Stamp Act and later the Townshend Duties, he counseled Americans to resist peacefully through boycotts and non-importation. That approach succeeded in uniting the colonies and ultimately repealing most of the duties. Later reformers, from Alice Paul to Martin Luther King Jr., drew on the same Quaker tradition.
Strickland: We’re in a moment of intense debate over presidential power. How might Dickinson have viewed arguments for a strong executive under the unitary executive theory?
Calvert: We can’t know for certain what any founder would say today, but Dickinson consistently warned against unchecked executive power. He valued deliberation, respected liberty of the press, and believed political violence—whether riots or assassinations—was antithetical to democracy. As a delegate in 1787, he preferred an executive council over a single strong president. Even so, all delegates, including Hamilton, agreed the executive must be limited, checked by other branches, and removable by impeachment. Dickinson would have been alarmed by the Supreme Court’s 2024 ruling granting presidents immunity for official acts… a sharp departure from the founders’ intent.
Strickland: On the other side, some are calling for reforms to make government more directly democratic—changes to the Senate, the Supreme Court, even the Electoral College. What would Dickinson say?
Calvert: We know he disliked the Electoral College. He preferred a president elected directly by the people, and he argued electors should be chosen by citizens rather than legislatures. Beyond that, it’s harder to project. He stressed that judges should serve “on good behavior,” though today he might consider term limits. What’s clear is that he would be disturbed by Congress’s abdication of its checking role and by threats to judicial independence.
Strickland: Finally, if Dickinson were writing for today’s America, what advice would he give citizens?
Calvert: He believed civic education was the foundation of self-government. He and his wife used their wealth to found schools for poor children, orphans, boys and girls, Black and white. He foresaw a day when all people would vote, and he thought they needed a liberal education—history, science, literature, religion—to prepare them. His writings always addressed ordinary Americans, urging them to participate peacefully and respectfully. If he were here today, he would warn that our problems stem from a failure of civic education. Without it, we risk replacing dialogue with violence, and that would mean the downfall of the republic.
Dr. Jane E. Calvert will deliver the Constitution Day keynote at UWF on Sept. 24, 2025, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. in Conference Center Ballroom A/B. The event is free and open to the public and will include a book-signing of "Penman of the Founding."
