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“[Murchison] employ[s] his incomparable pen and vivid historical imagination in the cause of bringing back to life one of the most underrated and misunderstood of the Founders.”
—The American Conservative
The Cost of Liberty offers a sorely needed reassessment of a great patriot and misunderstood Founder.
It has been more than a half century since a biography of John Dickinson appeared. Author William Murchison rectifies this mistake, bringing to life one of the most influential figures of the entire Founding period, a principled man whose gifts as writer, speaker, and philosopher only Jefferson came near to matching. In the process, Murchison destroys the caricature of Dickinson that has emerged from such popular treatments as HBO’s John Adams miniseries and the Broadway musical 1776.
Dickinson is remembered mostly for his reluctance to sign the Declaration of Independence. But that reluctance, Murchison shows, had nothing to do with a lack of patriotism. In fact, Dickinson immediately took up arms to serve the colonial cause—something only one signer of the Declaration did. He stood on principle to oppose declaring independence at that moment, even when he knew that doing so would deal the “finishing blow” to his once-great reputation.
Dubbed the “Penman of the Revolution,” Dickinson was not just a scribe but also a shaper of mighty events. From the 1760s through the late 1780s he was present at, and played a significant role in, every major assemblage where the Founders charted America’s path—a claim few others could make. Author of the landmark essays Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, delegate to the Continental Congress, key figure behind the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, chief executive of both Pennsylvania and Delaware: Dickinson was, as one esteemed historian aptly put it, “the most underrated of all the Founders.”
This lively biography gives a great Founder his long-overdue measure of honor. It also broadens our understanding of the Founding period, challenging many modern assumptions about the events of 1776 and 1787.
- Sales Rank: #271889 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
- Published on: 2013-09-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.75" h x 1.10" w x 5.50" l, .93 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 256 pages
Features
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
“John Dickinson’s vigorous defense of Americans’ rights as Englishmen won him renown throughout the colonies in the 1760s, but his refusal to sign the Declaration of Independence in 1776 diminished his reputation and came to be unfairly seen as his defining moment. . . . With The Cost of Liberty, a brisk, admiring biography, journalist William Murchison provides a fuller portrait.”
—Wall Street Journal
“[A] thoughtful and highly readable biography . . . Mr. Murchison, who illuminates a complex period in our history and with a sure and often novelistic touch brings his subject back to vivid life, makes a powerful and convincing case for restoring John Dickinson to his rightful place in the first rank of the Founders.”
—Washington Times
“One can read hundreds of biographies of the worthy men and women from the founding era, and this would be on the short list of those most beautifully written. . . . William Murchison has done his duty to what is left of the republic by restoring to us in charming and trenchant prose one of its greatest early leaders. This is an achievement I will pass along to my students and recommend to all lovers of liberty.”
—Chronicles
“[We should] be grateful that the veteran journalist William Murchison has chosen to employ his incomparable pen and vivid historical imagination in the cause of bringing back to life one of the most underrated and misunderstood of the Founders, whose intelligence and courage are badly needed in our time. . . . Murchison gives us a surprisingly riveting narrative. . . . Murchison shows with especial care and poignancy how much of a loss to the American conservative intellectual tradition, and to conservative ways of reading the Declaration and the Constitution, our neglect of Dickinson has been.”
—The American Conservative
“John Dickinson is perhaps the most neglected and least understood of the Founders of our nation. A man of principle and wisdom, Dickinson influenced the course of events and shaped the outcome in critical ways. William Murchison has brought him to life and cleared up some vital areas of the Founding. This book is truly a must read.”
—Forrest McDonald, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama, author of Novus Ordo Seclorum
“The Cost of Liberty is a delightful book—lively, warm, amusing, and intelligent. It brings a brave and wise man splendidly back to life.”
—Richard Brookhiser, author of James Madison and What Would the Founders Do?
“John Dickinson is the most neglected of the true giants of the American War for Independence. Bill Murchison has written a book finally, and fully, worthy of the author of more of our nation’s founding documents than any other man. This biography will stand for the ages.”
—John Willson, professor emeritus of history at Hillsdale College
“Like his biographical subject, John Dickinson, William Murchison possesses wisdom, a felicitous prose style, and a shrewd understanding, as Murchison puts it, of ‘the value of no in political affairs.’ The Cost of Liberty is a gem.”
—Bill Kauffman, author of Forgotten Founder, Drunken Prophet: The Life of Luther Martin
“This splendid new account of John Dickinson represents the perfect marriage of subject and author. It is hard to think of a Founder more deserving of a second and third look than the admirable Dickinson. And it is hard to think of a writer more worthy of our admiration than Bill Murchison, a master of the English language.”
—Wilfred M. McClay, Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty at the University of Oklahoma
About the Author
William Murchison is a widely published author, journalist, and commentator who specializes in historical and cultural subjects. A former editor at the Dallas Morning News, he is a nationally syndicated columnist and has contributed to the Wall Street Journal, National Review, the Weekly Standard, First Things, the American Spectator, Chronicles, the Washington Times, and other publications. Murchison holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of Texas and for five years served as Radford Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Baylor University. He lives in Texas.
Most helpful customer reviews
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Truly, and Always, An Indispensable Sort of Man
By Albert Alioto
This is an engaging short biography of a Founder who deserves to be more widely known. John Dickinson is noted as the author of LETTERS FROM A FARMER IN PENNSYLVANIA and controversial for his refusal to sign the Declaration of Independence. As William Murchison makes clear, Dickinson was not opposed to American independence, but believed that it should not be declared until the colonies were better prepared for war with Great Britain. It is hard to see how that could have been considered unreasonable.
Can there ever be a time when there is not a place for the man or woman who will stand in front of those in a hurry to act and ask, "Are you sure about what you want to do?" If we might not always have a Dickinson, we will always have Murchison's book to remind the rest of us to ask those questions.
It seems to me that it would not be a bad thing for the country if each incoming president was required to read THE COST OF LIBERTY.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
A Man of Wisdom; Neglected By History
By Paul
William Murchison has written an outstanding biography of John Dickinson, a powerful account of a Founding Father who, for years, has stood in the shadows of our understanding of the birth of this republic.
Having recently read Our Lives, Our Fortunes and Our Sacred Honor: The Forging of American Independence, 1774-1776 I had to order this book, as so much of the work by Beeman on American independence was focused on the non radical element of men attending the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia before the war began.
John Dickinson was foremost among the leaders of Pennsylvania, and was very cautious about relations with England, in the hopes that America could resolve the differences between the colonies and the Crown (mostly Parliament) and resume the peaceful and prosperous relations that had been the norm.
Even after the blood that was spilled at Lexington and Concord, men like Dickinson feared that emotions from the colonies in the northeast (primarily Massachusetts) would encourage Americans to embark on a journey of revolution that would, in the end, create more problems than solutions.
Dickinson was from a powerful family of Quakers with holdings in Pennsylvania and Delaware. In his youth he went to London and studied law at the Middle Temple. He was a scholarly man and attained much fame when he published Letters From A Farmer in Pennsylvania in November 1767, stating some of the causes of dissent among the colonists as a result of the misdeeds of the ministers of England, along with the Parliament, and a very stubborn George III.
Some called him the pen man of the revolution.
His caution during the first Congress was not solitary as many of the delegates were reluctant to break with England, but all were concerned about the precedent of taxation, the restriction of trade and the building of monopolies by England in the colonies. Dickinson was no exception and the most prominent of the men who wanted to proceed cautiously in dealings with London. All of this flew in the face of people like John Adams, who felt that the time of independence had come. We all know the result, and Dickinson has taken a back seat in the history of our country because of his caution and his devotion to his principles. There are also comparisons made between him and Edmund Burke, a champion of America in the British Parliament. While they were indeed kindred souls, they were both largely unsuccessful in their endeavors, and in the matter of Thomas Paine, his writings, while in no way nearly as educated and lofty as Dickinson's resonated with the average American and stole much of the thunder from Dickinson's Letters From A Farmer.
The book is very good and Murchison is a master of the King's English. For example, in dealing with the conflict between Adams and Dickinson, the author tells us: "Both were men of vast moral courage-but courage weighed from different sacks, upon scales differently balanced." In another passage: "The Stamp Act repeal was a political poultice laid on the injured relationship between Britain and her American colonies." There are many more fine examples that the reader can find in this delightful book.
I certainly have to give this five stars. I would also recommend The Men Who Lost America (The Lewis Walpole Series in Eighteenth-C) in order to better understand the fix that the British were in during this time.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Good read
By Timothy S. Sharpe
A very enlightening and readable book about Dickinson and his times, who until I read this was only a name I knew. Especially interesting for me as a native of Pennsylvania now living in Delaware, the two states Dickinson lived in.
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