Philadelphia Reflections

Caesar Rodney Rides Through the Rain

Caesar Rodney

If you have a quarter minted in 1999, you can see a depiction of Caesar Rodney riding through the rain, mud and heat, all night, to cast his July 2 vote for independence at the 1776 Continental Congress. There are no known painted portraits of Rodney, probably because his face was badly mutilated by cancer which ultimately killed him.

On July 1, Thomas McKean and George Read had split Delaware's votes in a tie, and McKean had urgently sent word to Rodney, the absent third vote, that he must come to Philadelphia quickly. Rodney was suffering from cancer. It may thus have been Thomas McKean's idea to invoke the concepts of the Treaty of Westphalia to escape hanging for armed rebellion, but Ben Franklin seems more likely. Once an idea like that gets started in a gathering, it quickly becomes everyone's idea. But Franklin was the only one to stampede a group and take no credit for doing so.

Rodney

Admiral Howe was already starting to land his seven hundred ships at Staten Island and Perth Amboy. It would not be difficult for him to travel a hundred miles across New Jersey to Trenton and down the Delaware River -- to hang them all as rebels. But Franklin had traveled that distance many times and had plenty of time to consider its strategic location. Only if they could establish the notion that they were an independent country could they hope to shelter themselves in the rules of war? (Even so, most of them found it prudent to wait a few weeks before signing Jefferson's somewhat specious arguments.) In the background, of course, Benjamin Franklin had a shrewder assessment or possibly even overt threat: the King of France wasn't going to help them unless they severed their allegiance with England.

Schoolchildren in Delaware can be forgiven for asking why Rodney wasn't in Philadelphia for the vote without being sent for. And we don't really know. Rodney certainly had plenty of other things competing for his attention, like being a Supreme Court Justice, the Speaker of the Delaware Assembly and the de facto Governor of the State, as well as being a Brigadier General in the Militia (he later was made Major General in charge of the garrison at Trenton). One has to suspect, however, that he had not expected George Read to vote against independence. Read, after all, had married the widowed sister of George Ross, who did sign the Declaration.

Asthma, a notoriously intermittent condition, may have been a worse impediment to Caesar Rodney's ride than his cancer. Although he was badly disfigured, cancer did not kill him until 1784. The prospect of riding eighty miles in the rain with asthma may well have been the reason Rodney held off until he was absolutely certain his vote was needed. The esteem and affection that Delaware holds for this farmer from Dover can be gauged by the fact that he remained the elected speaker until the day he died, and during his last three months, the legislature held its meetings in his house so he could be present.

Originally published: Friday, June 23, 2006; most-recently modified: Thursday, August 29, 2019