Thomas
Wilson
Dorr
1805
1854
Thomas Dorr was born into privilege in November 1805, a scion of one of Rhode Island’s wealthiest families. His father, Sullivan Dorr, was a Providence businessman and prominent China trade merchant. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and then at Harvard University (class of 1823), Thomas Dorr studied law for two years in New York City under Chancellor James Kent, the author of one of the leading American legal texts of the first half of the nineteenth century, before being admitted to the Rhode Island bar in 1827. Dorr opened a law office on College Street, but the restless young man was not yet ready to settle down. He toured the country for almost six years and occasionally practiced maritime and commercial law in New York City before returning to Providence in 1833. In the 1830s, Dorr championed numerous reform causes, including public education, freedom of speech, banking, anti-slavery, suffrage extension, imprisonment for debt and prison reform. Dorr began his career as a devout Whig, with a deep and abiding love of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. However, disagreements over banking reform and suffrage extension led to his expulsion from the party. He would later head the equal rights wing of the state's Democratic Party. In 1834, as a newly elected member of Rhode Island’s General Assembly, Dorr joined the Constitutionalist Party, a third-party effort that picked up the reform torch from associations of native-born workingmen. The goal of the party was to secure a new constitution that would expand the suffrage for white males and address the state's apportionment problem. (Authored by Dr. Erik J. Chaput, 2012)
Allen
Dorr
1808
1889
Allen Dorr entered Phillip Exeter Academy in 1820 at the age of twelve. He graduated in 1823. Like his older brother, Allen was a member
of the Golden Branch Society. He lived most of his
life in Cumberland, Rhode
Island.
Ann
Allen
Dorr
1810
1884
Thomas
Dorr’s younger sister. Ann married
Moses Brown Ives, the president of the
Providence Bank and a trustee of Brown
University, in 1833.
Mary
Throop
Dorr
1811
1869
Thomas
Dorr’s younger sister. She married
Providence lawyer
Samuel Ames, a graduate of Phillips
Exeter Academy, in 1839.
Ames served as the state's quartermaster
general in 1842.
Samuel
Adams
Dorr
1775
1855
Samuel A. Dorr was Thomas
Dorr's uncle. He was a prominent
Boston merchant engaging in
the lucrative China trade.
Sullivan
Dorr
1778
1858
Sullivan Dorr, Sr. was the father of ThomasWilsonDorr
. Sullivan Dorr was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. In the latter
part of the eighteenth century, Sullivan entered into the family
merchant business, spending many years overseas in Canton,
China. Upon his marriage to Lydia Allen of Providence in 1804 he settled
in that city where he became involved in manufacturing. He also served
as President of the Washington Insurance
Company.
Chancellor
James
Kent
1763
1847
The most prominent state level jurist in the antebellum period. He was
the author of the influential Commentaries on American Law
(1826-1830).
Thomas
Dorr attended his lectures at
New York City in 1824 and 1825. Unfortunately, the
James
Kent papers at the Library of
Congress do not mention
Thomas
Dorr.
Governor
Samuel
Ward
King
1786
1851
A Johnston physician, King
served as acting governor in 1839 and elected
governor from 1840 until 1843. He was married to Catherine
Angell, with whom he had fourteen children. As governor
under the Charter during the Dorr Rebellion,
King appealed to President
John
Tyler for military support.
John
Whipple
Esquire
1784
1886
Rhode Island’s foremost trial
attorney in the Jacksonian era graduated from Brown
University in 1802. He studied
law in New York City and then clerked
in the office of Samuel Bridgham, Providence's first mayor and
longtime chair of the city's board of education. Whipple presided over
the apprenticeship of many Rhode Island
lawyers including
Thomas
Wilson
Dorr. In 1848, Whipple, along with his close friend Daniel Webster, argued the position
of the Rhode Island government in the
case of Luther v. Borden before the United States
Supreme Court.
William
Bridges
Adams
1797
1872
William B. Adams was a prominent English political reformer and
railroad engineer. In 1832, Adams published The Rights of Morality under the pseudonym
Junius Redivivus. Adams visited the United States numerous times in the
1820s and 1830sd, staying with Dorr on
several occasions while he was living in Brooklyn, New York.
Alexander
Hill
Everett
1790
1847
Born in Boston, Massachusetts,
Alexander Hill Everett was the older brother of the prominent Massachusetts statesman Edward
Everett. Alexander H. Everett was a career diplomat,
serving many years abroad, including posts in Spain and China. In
1839, Everett switched from the
Whig to the Democratic Party
and became a key ally of Thomas
Dorr. In addition to his diplomatic
career, Everett also served as editor of the North American Review and as president of
Louisiana College.
Charles
Gibbs
Charles Gibbs was a native Rhode Islander and a pirate who was hung in
New York in 1831 for the murder of the captain and mate on the brig
Vineyard. Most likely Dorr was
referring to a small pamphlet titled Confessions of Charles Gibbs, the Pirate
published in Providence in
1831.
William
M.
Chace
1814
1862
A prominent Rhode Island
abolitionist. Chace was partners with George William
Benson in the wool business in Providence;
Benson was the brother of Helen
Benson who was the wife of William Lloyd
Garrison. Chace would later serve on the executive
committee of the Republican Party.
James
G.
Birney
1792
1857
James Birney was born in Danville,
Kentucky, to a plantation owning family. He would go on
to become one of the most prominent antislavery politicians in the
Jacksonian period. In 1832, Birney signed on as
a southern agent for the American Colonization
Society (ACS), but similar to
Thomas
Dorr, he became disillusioned with
ACS's scheme of gradual emancipation. In 1837 he moved to New
York to become the corresponding secretary of the
American Anti-Slavery Society. By the end of the
1830s, Birney saw the need for a new political party whose sole purpose
was to promote the abolition of slavery. With his leadership, the
Liberty Party was founded in 1840. Birney ran for president in 1840 and 1844 under the
Liberty Party banner.
Amos
Kendall
1789
1869
Kendall graduated from Dartmouth College in 1811. He studied law in Massachusetts before earning admission to the
Kentucky bar in 1814. He was appointed the fourth auditor of the
Treasury during the administration of President Andrew Jackson (1832-1835). Kendall was a major
contributor to many of Jackson's state papers, including the 1832
Bank veto message.
John
S.
Harris
John S. Harris was an active member of the Rhode Island
Suffrage Association. He was a delegate to the
People’s Constitutional Convention and in May 1842 he along with pro suffrage men
Burrington
Anthony and Dutee
J.
Pearce meet in New York City with Secretary of State
Daniel
Webster and Law &
Order representative John
Whipple in a final attempt to seek a
compromise and avert confrontation.
Dutee
J.
Pearce
1789
1849
Newport attorney Dutee Pearce was active in Rhode
Island politics for many years, serving as Attorney
General, U.S. District Attorney and as U.S. Congressman from 1825 – 1837. Pearce was active in the
suffrage movement, serving as a delegate to the People’s
Constitutional Convention in 1841.
Second only to
Thomas
Dorr in the leadership of the suffrage
movement, Pearce split with Dorr once the latter resorted to
force and attacked the state arsenal in May
1842.
Henry
C.
Dorr
1820
1897
The youngest child of Sullivan and Lydia Dorr. Henry Dorr was educated at
Brown University where he graduated in 1839. He studied law under Justice
Joseph Story at Harvard graduating
with a law degree in 1841. He then moved to
New York City where he became
close friends with the prominent lawyer George Templeton
Strong. Henry opened his own law practice in the city and
remained there for the remainder of his life. A life-long student of
history, Henry published numerous papers on the early history of
Rhode Island. Like his older
brothers, Henry was a bachelor.
John
Q.
Adams
1767
1848
Sixth President of the United
States.
Samuel
H.
Wales
Samuel H. Wales, a Providence tradesman, was active in the suffrage
movement and was a member of the People’s Constitutional
Convention. Elected as a member to the People’s
Legislature in April 1842 he
publicly resigned from that office the following month when Governor
Dorr resorted to force.
John
A.
Brown
Dr. John A. Brown, a botanic physician, was a member of the
RI Constitutional Party in the mid 1830s, he also served as President of
the RI Suffrage Association, publisher of the
New Age and Constitutional Advocate and a delegate to
the People’s Constitutional Convention. In early April 1842, Brown went to Washington D.C. to meet with President
John
Tyler in order to dissuade him from
intervening in Rhode Island by sending
Federal troops to support the charter government.
Job
Durfee
1790
1847
Job Durfee served in the General Assembly, from
1820 to 1825 after which he was
Rhode Island’s U.S. Representative
to Congress. In 1826 he was elected again to
the General Assembly. In 1833 he was elected as an Associate Justice to the
Rhode Island Supreme Court and in 1835 he was chosen Chief Justice. During the
Dorr Rebellion, Durfee issued a charge to the grand
jury convened in Bristol, in
which he declared the People’s Constitution was without
legal authority. In 1844, Durfee presided over
the treason trial of Thomas W.
Dorr.
Lydia
Allen
Dorr
1782
1859
Born Lydia Allen she was descended from early setters of Rhode Island. She was also a descendent of
Gabriel Bernon a French Huguenot. In 1804 she married Sullivan
Dorr of Boston. Her brothers Crawford,
Phillip and Zachariah
Allen would all play a role during the Dorr
Rebellion on the side of the Law and Order
Party.
John
Tyler
1790
1862
Elected Vice President in 1840 but became the
tenth President of the United
States when William Henry Harrison
died in office after serving only one month. In 1842, Tyler was requested to intervene in the Rhode Island constitutional crisis by both
Governor
King of the charter government and
Governor
Dorr of the People’s government.
Reluctant to get involved, he requested his Secretary of State,
Daniel
Webster, to mediate a compromise. When
Webster was unable to
broker a deal, Tyler announced that if the situation became violate, he
would aid the Charter authorities. However, Dorr's
forces disbanded before there was a need for federal troops to
intervene.
Levi
Woodbury
1789
1851
In 1842 Levi Woodbury was a US Senator from
New Hampshire and a correspondent
with Thomas
Dorr. While he favored an extension of
suffrage in Rhode Island he warned
Dorr to proceed with caution. In
1849 the rebellion related landmark case of
Luther v. Borden was decided in the US Supreme
Court. Woodbury, at the time an Associate Justice wrote
the dissenting opinion.
Roger
Williams
1603
1683
Theologian and founder of the Colony of Rhode
Island; he was a proponent of religious freedom and
separation of church and state.
Aaron
White
Junior
1789
1886
A lawyer by profession, White was an ardent suffrage supporter and one
of Thomas
Dorr’s closest advisors. He was one of
the lawyers to sign “The Rights of the People to Form a
Constitution – Statement of Reasons” commonly referred to as
the Nine Lawyers Opinion. This opinion was written after
the People’s Constitution was adopted and was intended to
address any concerns people may have had to the validity of the
People’s Constitution.
Daniel
Webster
1782
1852
Secretary of State during John
Tyler’s administration. On several
occasions he met with representatives of both Rhode
Island’s Charter government and the People’s government
in an attempt to resolve the “RI Controversy”. In May 1842 he journeyed to New York City in a vain attempt to strike a compromise.
Webster a staunch supporter of Law & Order would
several years later go on to defend the Law and Order
position in the United States Supreme Court’s hearing
of Luther v. Borden.
Walter
Snow
Burges
1808
1892
Providence attorney Walter Snow
Burges was Thomas
Dorr’s closest friend and confidant.
While he sympathized with the suffrage cause in 1841-1842, Burges did not participate in the events
of May and June
1842. As Dorr’s attorney he worked for his release from
prison. In 1845 he was appointed U.S. District
Attorney for Rhode Island (1851-1854 and 1860-1863). In 1868,
Burges was chosen as Associate Justice of the Rhode Island
Supreme Court.
Chauncey
Fitch
Cleveland
1799
1887
Served as governor of Connecticut
during the Dorr Rebellion. While he was elected as a
Democrat and appears to have been in favor of Rhode
Island’s suffrage reform efforts, Dorr doubted
that Cleveland would go to great lengths to prevent his arrest in the
summer of 1842. Cleveland ended his political
career as a prominent member of Connecticut's Republican Party.
Charles
Jackson
1797
1876
At the time of the Dorr Rebellion, Charles Jackson was a
supporter of the Charter government. He was also a delegate to the
Law and Order Constitutional Convention in late 1842. In 1845 Jackson
was elected Governor of Rhode Island on
the so-called “Liberation Ticket”. This ticket favored the
release of Thomas
Dorr from prison where he was serving
a life sentence for treason against the state. During Jackson’s term as
governor, Dorr was pardoned and released from
jail.
James
Fenner
1771
1846
James Fenner served as Governor of Rhode
Island from 1807 –
1811, 1824 – 1831 and
1843- 1845. During the Dorr
Rebellion he served on an advisory council to Governor
Samuel
Ward
King. Fenner was a staunch Law and
Order supporter and presided over the Law and Order Constitutional
Convention in late 1842.
Lemuel
Hastings
Arnold
1792
1852
Lemuel Hastings Arnold served as governor of Rhode Island from 1831 –
1833. During the Dorr Rebellion he served on the
advisory council to Governor
Samuel
Ward
King.
Burrington
Anthony
Burrington Anthony had been the Sheriff of Providence County and was an
active member in the RI Suffrage Association. On
May 14, 1842 he along with pro
suffrage men John
S.
Harris and Dutee
J.
Pearce met in New York City with Secretary of State
Daniel
Webster and Law & Order
representative John
Whipple in a final attempt to seek a
compromise and avert confrontation. When the compromise failed he
returned to Rhode Island. On May 16
Dorr
used Anthony’s home on Federal Hill as his headquarters
and it was this house that a late night attack on the Providence state arsenal
commenced.
Samuel
F.
Man
Samuel F. Man of Cumberland,
RI at the time of the rebellion was a member of the
General Assembly and a Law and
Order supporter however during Thomas
Dorr’s imprisonment he along with
other moderate Law and Order supporters formed a
coalition under the "Liberation Ticket” to seek Dorr
release. In 1845
Charles Jackson was elected
governor on this ticket and in June of that
year Dorr was finally released from
jail.
James
Fowler
Simmons
1795
1864
Born in Little Compton, Rhode
Island and educated in Newport. Simmons moved to Johnston in the early 1820s and opened up a large yarn factory. A long-time member
of the General Assembly, Simmons was elected to the
U.S. Senate as a Whig in 1841. He served one term in the Senate
and served as chairman of the powerful Committee on
Manufacturing. Simmons's oldest son
Walter took over his manufacturing business
while he was in Washington.
In 1857 the Rhode
Island legislature again sent Simmons to the
Senate, this time as a Republican.
William
Channing
Gibbs
1790
1871
Governor of Rhode Island from 1821 to 1824. During the Dorr
Rebellion he was a steadfast supporter of the Charter
government.
William
J.
Miller
One of the publishers of the pro suffrage newspapers the Providence Daily Express and the New Age.
Samuel
M.
Millard
One of the publishers of the pro suffrage newspapers the Providence Daily Express and the New Age.
Samuel
Low
One of the publishers of the pro suffrage newspapers the Providence Daily Express and the New Age.
William
Simons
Junior
1848
Newspaper publisher of the Republican
Herald from 1829 until the
time of his death in 1848. During the time of
the Dorr Rebellion his newspaper took a pro-suffrage
position.
Levi
D.
Slamm
1816
1862
Editor of the New York City radical
democratic newspapers the New Era
and Daily Plebeian. Closely aligned
with Tammany Hall, Slamm was
largely responsible for the warm reception Dorr
received on his several visits to New York
City in May and June 1842.
Henry
B.
Anthony
1815
1884
Editor of the Providence
newspaper The Daily Journal and was
the leading apologist for the Law and Order position during
the rebellion. He would go on to become Governor in 1849 and US Senator in 1859 where
he served until his death in 1884.
Dr.
Edward E.
Andrews
Assistant Professor of History at Providence College. Andrews is an early American historian who is particularly interested in
cultural encounters in the British Atlantic World up to 1800. He received his Ph.D. from The University of New Hampshire, his
M.A. from The American University in Washington, D.C., and his B.A. from Providence
College. He teaches courses in early American history, Native American history, Public
History, The British Atlantic World, and The Development of Western Civilization.
Deborah
Angelo
Former Digital Services Assistant at the Phillips Memorial Library.
Mark
Caprio
Head of Digital Publishing Services at the Phillips Memorial Library.
Dr.
Erik J.
Chaput
Russell
DeSimone
Rachel
Golub
Digital Services Assistant at the Phillips Memorial Library.
Christiane Marie
Landry
Digital Publishing Services Specialist at the Phillips Memorial Library.
Marc
Mestre
Commons Digital Media Specialist at the Phillips Memorial Library.
Hailie
D.
Posey
1982
Coordinator of Digital Publishing Services at the Phillips Memorial Library.
Sidney
Smith
Rider
Richard
Slaney