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Two series of letters that have been described as “the wellsprings of nearly all ensuing debate on the limits of governmental power in the United States” are collected in this volume. The writings include Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania - the “farmer” being the gifted and courageous statesman John Dickinson and Letters from the Federal Farmer - he being the redoubtable Richard Henry Lee of Virginia. Together, Dickinson and Lee addressed the whole remarkable range of issues provoked by the crisis of British policies in North America, a crisis from which a new nation emerged from an overreaching empire. Dickinson wrote his Letters in opposition to the Townshend Acts by which the British Parliament in 1767 proposed to reorganize colonial customs. The publication of the Letters was, as Philip Davidson believes, “the most brilliant literary event of the entire Revolution.” Forrest McDonald adds, “Their impact and their circulation were un approached by any publication of the revolutionary period except Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.” Lee wrote in 1787 as an Anti-Federalist, and his Letters gained, as Charles Warren has noted, “much more widespread circulation and influence” than even the heralded Federalist Papers. Both sets of Letters deal, McDonald points out, “with the same question: the never-ending problem of the distribution of power in a broad and complex federal system.”

Introduction

At first glance, it might seem that John Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania and Richard Henry Lee’s Letters from the Federal Farmer have little in common beyond being epistles from negative-minded agrarians. Two decades and a Revolution separated their publication: Dickinson’s Letters were published late in 1767, Lee’s late in 1787. Their subject matter appears even less related, for Dickinson wrote in opposition to the Townshend Acts, Lee in opposition to the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. Finally, though both men rank among the more celebrated of the Founding Fathers, they stood on opposite sides of the two most important issues of the revolutionary epoch. In the summer of 1776 Lee authored the motion that the colonies should sever their ties with Britain, and Dickinson was among the foremost opponents of the Declaration of Independence. Eleven summers later, Dickinson helped author the Constitution, and Lee was among its foremost opponents.
But in fact they are dealing with the same question, the never-ending problem of the distribution of power in a broad and complex federal system. Despite a persistent myth of a bygone laissez-faire paradise (or hell, depending on the point of view), Americans have always been accustomed to fairly extensive governmental interference in their lives, but they have continually argued over just which government should do the interfering. When the British government began to levy taxes on the colonies, when the colonies declared their independence, when the new states joined in a “league of friendship” under the Articles of Confederation, when they formed a “more perfect union” under the Constitution, the sum total of governmental power that was recognized as legitimate remained essentially the same. What was being changed was the distribution of power, the equilibrium of the federal system. And each time power has shifted, from then until now, Americans have re-argued the question.

John Dickinson

John Dickinson (1732 – 1808) was an American lawyer and politician from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Wilmington, Delaware. He was a militia officer during the American Revolution, a Continental Congressman from Pennsylvania and Delaware, a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, President of Delaware and President of Pennsylvania. Among the wealthiest men in the British American colonies, he is known as the "Penman of the Revolution" for his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; upon receiving news of his death, President Thomas Jefferson recognized him as being "among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain" whose "name will be consecrated in history as one of the great worthies of the revolution." Together with his wife Mary Norris Dickinson he is the namesake of Dickinson College and Penn State University's Dickinson School of Law.

Richard Henry Lee

Richard Henry Lee (1732 – 1794) was an American statesman from Virginia best known for the motion in the Second Continental Congress calling for the colonies' independence from Great Britain. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and his famous resolution of June 1776 led to the United States Declaration of Independence, which Lee signed. He also served a one-year term as the President of the Continental Congress, and was a United States Senator from Virginia from 1789 to 1792, serving during part of that time as one of the first Presidents pro tempore.
Lee County, Georgia is named in his honor. Richard Henry Lee Elementary School in Rossmoor, California and Richard Henry Lee School in Chicago, Illinois are also named in his honor. Richard Henry Lee Elementary in Glen Burnie, Maryland is also named after him.
Richard Henry Lee is a key character in the musical “1776”. He was portrayed by Ron Holgate in both the Broadway cast and in the 1972 film. The character performs a song called "The Lees of Old Virginia," in which he explains how he knows he will be able to convince the Virginia House of Burgesses to allow him to propose independence.