The Second Continental Congress met shortly after the first shots of the American Revolution were fired in April 1775. Rodney was appointed as one of the three Delaware delegates to Congress. As the Revolutionary War grew in intensity, Rodney spent more time in Delaware than Philadelphia in order to assist with the important role of supplying the Continental Army. General George Washington’s correspondence with Rodney through letters reflects an appreciation by Washington for Rodney’s efforts in this regard.
On July 1, 1776, Rodney was in Dover, Delaware, when he received a letter from Philadelphia. The Continental Congress had scheduled a vote the next day, July 2, on Virginian Richard Henry Lee’s proposal that “these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states.” Thomas McKean and George Reed, the two Delaware delegates in Philadelphia, disagreed over whether to vote for independence or not. While Reed and McKean both ultimately signed the Declaration, Reed did not favor the vote for independence, while McKean was. Caesar Rodney was needed to break the tie. As an ardent believer of independence, Rodney did not hesitate.
Rodney got on his horse and rode for eighteen straight hours and over eighty miles through thunder and rain to get to Philadelphia before the vote, a ride that usually took two days. He stopped only to change horses. As if straight out of a Hollywood movie, it is said that the other Congressional delegates heard the hoofbeats on the cobblestones outside the convention hall, and in came Caesar Rodney, near exhaustion, covered in mud, with spurs still attached, to break his state’s tie to vote in favor of independence.
Rodney’s ride has never received the attention it should have. One of the problems Rodney still encounters historically is that he did not look the part of a Hollywood leading man. Skin cancer on his face caused disfigurement that he often took to covering up with a green silk veil. He suffered from many different physical ailments, including asthma, but none of these conditions prevented him from doing his duty.
If Delaware had not voted for independence and the thirteen colonies had not been unanimous and united, the British could have exploited this division to their advantage. History may have taken a very different turn. The best chance the American colonies had against the mighty British was to stay united. Rodney’s ride ensured this.
Go here to read the rest. Rodney never let his health stand in the way of his duty.
A little known but an important patriot. Thanks for posting.
Here in the state of Delaware, the First State; in Wilmington Delaware, we have Rodney Square. Reason and Rights.
I am putting this here now because July 4th is next week and I expect few will be reading about the human being.
If the child in the womb is part of the woman’s body then the foetus is most certainly human unless, of course, if the mother is not human, then the foetus is not human.
If the child in the womb is an offspring of the woman and the father, then the father has the same rights to the child as the mother, even if the father does not want his offspring, the child enters society as the father’s and the mother’s and endures its laws and lives according to the laws of nature.
If the parents of the child are citizens than the child is a citizen subject to and protected by our Founding Principles, that part that states that “all men are created equal” and endowed by their Creator with Life, Liberty and the pursuit of truth, his Happiness.
Upon birth, citizenship is bestowed by the state. Every aborted child enters the world if only to be killed, not to enjoy citizenship; born untimely.
The human, rational, immortal soul defines who the child will grow to be. The human, rational, immortal soul is created by “their Creator” and infused at conception. Without the soul, the foetus is dead.
Created in original innocence the newly begotten sovereign person is the standard of Justice for the nation, being morally and legally innocent.
Denying the sovereign personhood of the newly begotten denies his immortal human soul, making of him a chattel to the state, a commodity to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, in whole or in part, as a slave or a thing with no soul, no civil rights and no destiny.
Our Founding Principles claim to provide for our constitutional “Posterity”, all future generations. Since “We, the people” includes all of our ancestors, all of us and all of our constitutional “Posterity”, Roe v. Wade denied the rational human soul to the newly begotten human being without supplying the burden of proof that the newly begotten human being, body and soul was not a child of God and of Man.
Roe v. Wade is incomplete and unfinished and until such burden of proof is provided, abortion may not be enacted. (The Law of the Land crippled)
Interestingly enough, the woman uses her free will endowed by “their Creator” to deny another sovereign person their free will and freedom.
Mary De Voe
Dobbs’ was decided on the feast of Saint John the Baptist, June 24th.