George Read
Born: September 18, 1733
Died: September 21, 1798
Colony/State: Delaware
Occupation / Public Role: Lawyer, legislator, judge, delegate to the Continental Congress, U.S. Senator
Contribution to the Founding Era: Delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, framer of the Constitution, president of Delaware, and later one of Delaware’s first U.S. Senators.
George Read was born near North East, Cecil County, Maryland, and built his public career in New Castle, Delaware. He studied law, was admitted to the bar, and began practice in New Castle in the early 1750s. Before the Revolution, he rose steadily in Delaware public life and served as attorney general for lower Delaware from 1763 to 1774 and as a member of the provincial assembly.
Read’s path to independence was more cautious than that of some other signers. The National Governors Association notes that he voted against independence on July 2, 1776, preferring reconciliation at first, while the Constitution Center explains that he later became a firm supporter of the Declaration once independence had been decided. That makes him one of the more interesting signers, because he did not begin as a revolutionary hothead and yet still put his name on the final break with Great Britain.
Read served in both the First Continental Congress and the Second Continental Congress, and he signed the Declaration of Independence as one of Delaware’s delegates. The National Archives lists him as 42 years old in 1776 and identifies his occupation as lawyer. His story is a good reminder that the signers were not all identical in temperament. Some charged toward independence like bulls through a fence. Others got there by a more cautious road.
After independence, Read remained a major figure in both Delaware and national politics. He served as president of Delaware during the Revolutionary period, later represented the state at the Annapolis Convention in 1786 and the Federal Constitutional Convention in 1787, and signed the United States Constitution. He was then elected as one of Delaware’s first United States Senators and later became Chief Justice of Delaware.
George Read died in 1798. He is not one of the loudest names of the founding era, but he was one of the most durable and institutionally important men Delaware produced: lawyer, signer, state president, constitutional framer, senator, and chief justice. That is a hefty résumé for a man often remembered mainly as “the Delaware guy who hesitated first.”
Related Links
- Signers of the Declaration of Independence
- Declaration of Independence
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- James Wilson