George Read

George Read was born in 1733 in Cecil County, Maryland, and trained as a lawyer before establishing his practice in New Castle, Delaware, where he became one of the most prominent legal and political figures in one of Britain's smaller North American colonies. Delaware's position — tiny, sandwiched between Pennsylvania and Maryland, with a population divided among Quakers, Anglicans, and Presbyterians of varying political sympathies — made its political leadership acutely conscious of the need for consensus and careful deliberation. Read embodied that caution: he was a man of conservative instincts who moved slowly toward radical positions but moved there with firm conviction once he had reasoned his way through.

At the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, Read initially voted against Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence in early July 1776, believing the timing was premature and that reconciliation might still be possible. Delaware's delegation was split, and the colony's decisive third vote — Caesar Rodney's famous overnight ride to Philadelphia — broke the tie in favor of independence. When the Declaration was formally engrossed and presented for signing, Read added his name, having concluded that the die was cast and that Delaware must stand with its fellow colonies. He subsequently drafted Delaware's 1776 state constitution, creating the institutional structure for Delaware's revolutionary government. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Read was among the most active delegates, advocating strongly for equal representation of states in the Senate — the position that produced the Connecticut Compromise — and working to ensure that smaller states like Delaware would not be overwhelmed by their larger neighbors in the new federal system.

Read presided over Delaware's ratification convention in December 1787, where Delaware became the first state to ratify the new Constitution, earning the nickname the First State that Delaware still bears. He subsequently served as a United States Senator and as Chief Justice of Delaware, a career arc that placed him at the center of both the Revolutionary and early republican periods of American history. He died in 1798, his reputation resting on the steadiness and legal craftsmanship he had brought to the most consequential constitutional moments of his era.