page_title: Caesar Rodney
section_title: American Revolution
hierarchical_section_title: Caesar Rodney / American Revolution
caption_attribution_description: English: John Trumbull's painting, Declaration of Independence, depicting the five-man drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence presenting their work to the Congress. The painting can be found on the back of the U.S. $2 bill. The original hangs in the US Capitol rotunda. Español: Cuadro del pintor estadounidense John Trumbull. Se encuentra en la rotonda del capitolio de los Estados Unidos (Washington D.C.) y representa la presentación al Congreso del documento que establecía la Declaración de Independencia de los Estados Unidos. Français&#160;: John Trumbull (US-americain, 1756-1843): Déclaration d'indépendance figurant la Commission des Cinq déposant le texte de la déclaration d'indépendance. De gauche à droite, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Thomas Jefferson et Benjamin Franklin. فارسی: جان ترامبول در مشهورترین اثر خود با نام اعلان استقلال، پنج مرد را به تصویر کشیده‌است که در حال تحویل پیش‌نویس اعلامیهٔ استقلال ایالات متحده به دومین کنگرهٔ مهاجرنشینان هستند. این تصویر بر پشت اسکناس‌های دو دلاری ایالات متحده به چشم می‌خورد. تابلو اصلی در ساختمان کاپیتول نصب شده‌است.
context_page_description: Caesar Rodney was an American lawyer and politician from St. Jones Neck in Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware, east of Dover. He was an officer of the Delaware militia during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and President of Delaware during most of the American Revolution.
context_section_description: Rodney joined Thomas McKean as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 and was a leader of the Delaware Committee of Correspondence. He began his service in the Assembly of Delaware in the 1761/62 session and continued in office through the 1775/76 session. Several times he served as Speaker, including the momentous day of June 15, 1776 when "with Rodney in the chair and Thomas McKean leading the debate on the floor," the Assembly of Delaware voted to sever all ties with the British Parliament and King.
  Meanwhile, Rodney served in the Continental Congress along with Thomas McKean and George Read from 1774 through 1776. Rodney was in Dover tending to Loyalist activity in Sussex County when he received word from Thomas McKean that he and Read were deadlocked on the vote for independence. To break the deadlock, Rodney rode 70 miles through a thunderstorm on the night of July 1, 1776, arriving in Philadelphia "in his boots and spurs" on July 2, just as the voting was beginning. He voted with McKean and thereby allowed Delaware to join eleven other states in voting in favor of the resolution of independence. The wording of the Declaration of Independence was approved two days later; Rodney signed it on August 2. Backlash in Delaware led to Rodney's electoral defeat in Kent County for a seat in the upcoming Delaware Constitutional Convention and the new Delaware General Assembly.
  John Haslet was perhaps the best soldier Delaware had to offer, and the next best soldier, his good friend Caesar Rodney. Upon learning about the death of Haslet at the Battle of Princeton, Rodney rushed to the Continental Army to try to fill his place. Haslet was succeeded as colonel by David Hall as Washington returned Rodney home to be Delaware's wartime governor and major-general of Delaware militia. The regiment Haslet had built remained among the finest in the Continental Army until it was virtually destroyed at the Battle of Camden in 1780. Rodney, as major-general of the Delaware militia, protected the state from British military intrusions and controlled continued loyalist activity, particularly in Sussex County, site of the 1780 Black Camp Rebellion. The insurrectionists were mainly from Cedar Creek and Slaughter Neck Hundred, and their headquarters were in a swamp about six miles (10 km) north of Georgetown. Their leaders, Bartholomew Banynum (Banum) and William Dutton, had about 400 men formed in "Associations" or militia companies. An investigator reported the causes as follows: 'Some of these ignorant people were for opposing all law, others for establishing what they called the King's Laws – and others for opposing the payment of taxes – but generally seem to have believed that all to the southward of Chesapeake Bay had laid down their arms and submitted to the King's Laws – and that they should very easy make Sussex County do the same.
  Militia from Kent County dispersed the insurrectionists. Some were sent off to serve in the Continental Army, and thirty-seven were indicted for treason in the State Supreme Court. Eight were ordered to be hanged "by the neck but not till you be dead, for then your bowels must be taken out and burnt before your face, then your head must be severed from your body, and your body divided into four Quarters, and these must be at the disposal of the Supreme Authority in the State." This was the customary sentence for treason; however, all the participants were pardoned by the General Assembly on November 4, 1780.
  Amidst the catastrophic events following the Battle of Brandywine, and the British occupation of Wilmington and Philadelphia, a new General Assembly was elected in October 1777. First, it promptly put Rodney and Thomas McKean back into the Continental Congress. Then, with State President John McKinly in captivity, and President George Read completely exhausted, they elected Rodney as President of Delaware on March 31, 1778. The office did not have the authority of a modern Governor in the United States, so Rodney's success came from his popularity with the General Assembly, where the real author
caption: Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull (1818) portrays the presentation of the Declaration of Independence to Congress. Rodney is not depicted.[12]
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