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Thomas McKean - 2nd US President - A Stan Klos Biography
Thomas McKean 2nd President of the United States
in Congress Assembled
July 10, 1781 to November 5, 1781
McKEAN, Thomas, signer of the Declaration of
Independence, born in New London, Chester County, Pennsylvania, 19 March, 1734;
died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 24 June, 1817. His parents were both natives
of Ireland. The son was educated by the Reverend Francis Allison, who was at
that time a celebrated teacher of New Castle, Delaware. McKean was of Scots-Irish stock
and was a man of vigorous personality, "with a thin face, hawk's nose and hot
eyes." McKean had important
family connections there and he wasted no time pursuing a career in politics.He was admitted to the bar before he was twenty-one, appointed deputy
attorney general of Sussex county a year later, and in 1757-'9 was clerk of the
assembly. With Caesar Rodney he became in 1762 reviser of laws that had been
passed previous to 1752, and in October of this year was elected to the general
assembly, holding office for seventeen successive years, during the last of
which he resided in Philadelphia.
He was a trustee of the loan-office of New Castle county for twelve years,
and in 1765 was elected to the Stamp-act congress. Had the votes in this body
been taken according to the population of the states that were represented, that
of Delaware would have been insignificant, but, through the influence of McKean,
each state was given an equal voice, fie was one of the most influential members
of this congress, was one of the committee that drew the memorial to the lords
and commons, and, with John Rutledge and Philip Livingston, revised its
proceedings. On the last day of its session, when business was concluded, after
Timothy Ruggles, the president of the body, and a few other timid members, had
refused to sign the memorial of rights and grievances, McKean arose, and,
address-log the chair, insisted that the president give his reasons for his
refusal. After a pause Ruggles remarked that "it was against his conscience."
McKean then rung the changes on the word "conscience" so loudly and so
long that a challenge was given and accepted between himself and Ruggles in the
presence of the congress, but Ruggles left the next morning at daybreak, so that
the duel did not take place.
In July of this year McKean was appointed sole notary of the lower counties
of Delaware and judge of the court of common pleas, and of the orphans' court of
New Castle. In the November term of this year he ordered that all the
proceedings of this court be recorded on un-stamped paper, and this was the
first court in the colonies that established such a rule. He was collector of
the port of New Castle in 1771, speaker of the house of representatives in 1772,
and from 1774 a member of the Continental congress.
In September, 1774, he had just married his
second wife, Sarah Armitage of New Castle. His first wife, Mary Borden, the
daughter of Joseph Borden of Bordentown, New Jersey, and sister of the wife of
Francis Hopkinson, had died in 1773, leaving him with six children. He would
father five more children with his second wife.
He was the only member that served in congress from its 1774 opening till the
peace, and while he represented Delaware till 1783, and was its president in
1781, he was chief justice of Pennsylvania from July, 1777, till 1799, each
state claiming him as its own, and until 1779 he also occupied a seat in the
Delaware legislature. During the session of congress in 1776 he was one of the
committee to state the rights of the colonies, one of the secret committee to
contract for the importation of arms, and of that to prepare and digest the form
of the Articles of Confederation to be entered into between the colonies, which
he signed on the part of Delaware, and he superintended the finances and a
variety of important measures.
At the Second Congress, McKean was a true
fighter for independence. Since the Stamp Act of 1765 he had opposed British
rule. He believed that the crown had "no right to regulate American affairs
in any way". In June, 1776, McKean returned to Delaware and gained authority
for its delegates to vote for independence. Although particularly active
in procuring the Declaration, to which his name is subscribed in the original
instrument, he does not, through a mistake on the part of the printer, appear as
a subscriber in the copy published in the journal of congress. A few days after McKean cast his vote, he left
Congress to command a battalion of troops to assist Washington at Perth Amboy,
New Jersey. He was not available when most Signers placed their signatures on
the Declaration on August 2, 1776. There is considerable question as to when
McKean actually signed the Declaration. He certainly did not do this in August,
and although he claimed in old age that he attached his name some time in 1776,
it did not appear on the printed copy that was authenticated on January 17,
1777, and it is assumed that he signed after that date.
In July, 1776, he was chairman of the delegates from New York, New Jersey,
and Pennsylvania, and in the same year chairman of the Pennsylvania committees
of safety and inspection and the Philadelphia committee of observation. A few
days after signing the Declaration of independence he marched at the head of a
battalion to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to re-enforce General Washington until the
arrival of the flying camp. On his return to Dover he found a committee awaiting
him to urge him to prepare the constitution of the state, which he drew up on
the night of his arrival, and which was unanimously adopted by the assembly the
next day.
While acting in 1777 in the double capacity of president of Delaware and
chief justice of Pennsylvania, he describes himself in a letter to his intimate
friend, John Adams, as "hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove
my family five times in three months, and at last fixed them in a little
log-house on the banks of the Susquehanna, but they were soon obliged to move
again on account of the incursions of the Indians."
As a delegate to the Continental Congress he was present when the Articles of
Confederation were ratified on March 1, 1781. By virtue of this ratification the
ever fluid Continental Congress ceased to exist and on March 2nd "The United
States in Congress Assembled" was placed at the head of each page of the
Official Journal of Congress. The United States of America which was conceived
on July 2, 1776 had finally been born in 1781 under the Presidency of
Samuel Huntington.
By May of 1781, President Huntington's health began to fail.
Huntington, despite the pleadings of the delegates tendered his resignation as
President on July 6, 1781. The United States in Congress Assembled Journals
reported:
"The President having informed the United States in Congress assembled,
that his ill state of health" ... not permit him to continue longer in the
exercise of the duties of that office".
Congress held off electing a new President until July 10th in the hope that
Huntington would recover and reconsider. On July 10th Delegate Thomas McKean was
elected as the second President of the United States in Congress Assembled and
was first to be elected under the Articles of Confederation as President
Huntington assumed the position as the former President of the Continental
Congress.
McKean was president of congress in 1781, and in that capacity received
Washington's dispatches announcing the surrender of Cornwallis.
So revered was this office by Thomas McKean (Signer of the Declaration of
Independence) that the Presidency was used to turn down his party's 1804
nomination for Vice President under
Thomas Jefferson saying:
"... President of the United States in Congress
Assembled in the year of 1781 (a proud year for Americans) equaled any merit or
pretensions of mine and cannot now be increased by the office of Vice
President.”
Although McKean's tenure as US President was the
most brief it was a eventful period in US History beginning with the duly
elected President of the United States in Congress Assembled declining the
office:
Want to know
more about Samuel Huntington and the 9 other US Presidents before George
Washington?
Now Available in Paperback President Who?
Forgotten Founders Click Here
In this landmark work on Early
Presidential History, Historian Stanley L. Klos unravels the complex birth of
the US Presidency while providing captivating biographies on the Four Presidents
of the Continental Congress and ten Presidents of the United States before
George Washington. The book is filled with actual photographs of
Pre-Constitutional letters, resolutions, treaties, and laws enacted by the
Confederation Congress and signed by the Presidents of the Confederation
Congress as “President of the United States.”
From the United Colonies Birth in 1774 to the Constitutional Convention of 1787
the author clearly and concisely maps out the role and duties of the Presidents
who led the fledging nation through the Revolutionary War and the formation of
the United States under the Articles of Confederation. Accounts include the
birth of the Presidency and the United Colonies in Philadelphia’s City Tavern
(Yes the first “convening” of the
Continental Congress occurred in a tavern), the US Capitol
“road show” as it moved from town to town fleeing the British
Military Forces, the 1781ratification of the Articles of Confederation in
Philadelphia forming the first US Presidency, the entire US Government being
held hostage in Independence Hall in 1783 by its own Military, the near collapse
of Confederation Government in 1786 due to its failure to govern under the
threat of Shay’s Rebellion, the rebirth of the United States under the
Philadelphia Convention of 1787 called to revise the Articles of Confederation
and finally President Abraham Lincoln’s use of the Articles of Confederation as
his central legal argument to “Preserve the Perpetual Union of the United
States of America” in 1861.
This is a brilliant and most enjoyable
book which helps us to rediscover our rich history and heritage. Stan Klos
clearly establishes that Virginia -- not Delaware -- became the first State in
the Perpetual Union of the United States America ... because it was the first to
ratify the Articles of Confederation (1779). You too will want to read his
documentation complete with photographs and facsimiles of primary source
documents of our lively and enlightening Americana history.
-- G. William Thomas, Jr., President,
James Monroe Memorial Foundation
A well-written and extremely thought provoking piece of historical scholarship.
By using extensive primary source materials, Stan Klos effectively proves his
point that from 1781 to 1789 ten men served as President of the United States in
Congress Assembled. Mr. Klos does not wish to displace George Washington as
"Father of Our Country." Rather, Mr. Klos is seeking recognition for
Washington's predecessors. A must read for anyone interested in American
Presidential history.
-- Greg Priore
Archivist, William R. Oliver Special Collections Room
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
It is a masterpiece in defining presidential
history. Stanley Klos clearly presents the historic path of the presidency
beginning with the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled
Samuel Huntington, to the eleventh President, George Washington. It is a must
read for any serious student of American History.
-- Senator Bill Stanley
President of the Norwich Historical Society
… a thought provoking argument for “righting” our
history books about the very early years of our democracy. Samuel Huntington,
His Excellency the President of the United States in Congress Assembled, indeed!
- Lee Langston-Harrison, Curator
James Madison’s Montpelier
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