[This 1801 essay is excerpted from Liberty and Order: The First American Party Struggle (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004). Pendleton first published it in the Richmond Examiner in October 1801, and...
Edmund Pendleton
Edmund Pendleton (1721–1803) was a Virginia politician, lawyer, and judge, active in the American War of Independence. He served as president of the Virginia Committee of Safety from August 16, 1775 to July 5, 1776 (effectively serving as governor of the colony) and as president of the Virginia Convention that authorized Virginia’s delegates to propose a resolution to move for the break from Britain and creation of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson said of Pendleton, “Taken in all he was the ablest man in debate I ever met.”
