George Read-Signer of the Constitution

"[H]is legal abilities are said to be very great, but powers of Oratory are fatiguing and tiresome to the last degree." -William Pierce


George Read was born September 18, 1733 in North East, Maryland and he died September 21, 1798 in New Castle, Delaware.  Read was the son of a wealthy landowner who immigrated from Dublin, Ireland.

George Read studied law under John Moland of Philadelphia before marrying Gertrude (Ross) Till, the daughter of George Ross, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.  Read established a law practice in New Castle, Delaware in 1754.  Throughout the colonies he was known as a very good and honest lawyer. 

Read served as Attorney General between 1763 and 1774, by appointment of the Royal Governor of Delaware.  Concerning the Stamp Act Read said, "the colonists will entertain an opinion that they are to become the slaves [of Great Britain and will desire] to live as independently of the mother country as possible."  As a colonist, George Read was very wary of extremism.  On the issue of independence he first disagreed, believing that reconciliation between the mother country was still possible.  By the time the Declaration of Independence was approved on July 4, 1776, however, he approved wholeheartedly with the idea of independence as he signed the Declaration.

Read presided over his states Constitutional Convention in 1776.  He then became the Speaker of the Legislative Council of Delaware which made him the assistant governor.  Between 1777 and 1778, Read served as the President (Governor) of Delaware, after a close escape from the hands of the British in 1777.  He was back in the Legislative Council of Delaware just in time to authorize the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, George Read served with four other delegates from his small state.  In Philadelphia, Read immediately began a push for a new national government, because as he put it, "to amend the Articles was simply putting old cloth on a new garment."  George Read felt that a national government was needed so badly that he proposed that all the states be abolished and put under a national government.  With no support for that idea, Read became an adamant defender of the rights of the small states.  He did not want his state to be pushed around by states much larger than his.  He believed larger states would "probably combine to swallow up the smaller ones by addition, division or impoverishment."  As a result, George Read was a firm supporter of the New Jersey Plan and he threatened to lead Delaware out of the Convention if the small states didn't receive equal representation.

George Read was a lawyer who, at the Constitutional Convention, made certain that small states, like his, would not be pushed aside by larger ones.