He was a trustee of the loan-office of New Castle county for twelve years, and in 1765 was elected to the Stamp-act congress. Had the votes in this body been taken according to the population of the states that were represented, that of Delaware would have been insignificant, but, through the influence of McKean, each state was given an equal voice, fie was one of the most influential members of this congress, was one of the committee that drew the memorial to the lords and commons, and, with John Rutledge and Philip Livingston, revised its proceedings. On the last day of its session, when business was concluded, after Timothy Ruggles, the president of the body, and a few other timid members, had refused to sign the memorial of rights and grievances, McKean arose, and, address-log the chair, insisted that the president give his reasons for his refusal. After a pause Ruggles remarked that "it was against his conscience." McKean then rung the changes on the word "conscience" so loudly and so long that a challenge was given and accepted between himself and Ruggles in the presence of the congress, but Ruggles left the next morning at daybreak, so that the duel did not take place.

In July of this year McKean was appointed sole notary of the lower counties of Delaware and judge of the court of common pleas, and of the orphans' court of New Castle. In the November term of this year he ordered that all the proceedings of this court be recorded on un-stamped paper, and this was the first court in the colonies that established such a rule. He was collector of the port of New Castle in 1771, speaker of the house of representatives in 1772, and from 1774 a member of the Continental congress.

In September, 1774, he had just married his second wife, Sarah Armitage of New Castle. His first wife, Mary Borden, the daughter of Joseph Borden of Bordentown, New Jersey, and sister of the wife of Francis Hopkinson, had died in 1773, leaving him with six children. He would father five more children with his second wife.

He was the only member that served in congress from its 1774 opening till the peace, and while he represented Delaware till 1783, and was its president in 1781, he was chief justice of Pennsylvania from July, 1777, till 1799, each state claiming him as its own, and until 1779 he also occupied a seat in the Delaware legislature. During the session of congress in 1776 he was one of the committee to state the rights of the colonies, one of the secret committee to contract for the importation of arms, and of that to prepare and digest the form of the Articles of Confederation to be entered into between the colonies, which he signed on the part of Delaware, and he superintended the finances and a variety of important measures.

At the Second Congress, McKean was a true fighter for independence. Since the Stamp Act of 1765 he had opposed British rule. He believed that the crown had "no right to regulate American affairs in any way". In June, 1776, McKean returned to Delaware and gained authority for its delegates to vote for independence. Although particularly active in procuring the Declaration, to which his name is subscribed in the original instrument, he does not, through a mistake on the part of the printer, appear as a subscriber in the copy published in the journal of congress. A few days after McKean cast his vote, he left Congress to command a battalion of troops to assist Washington at Perth Amboy, New Jersey. He was not available when most Signers placed their signatures on the Declaration on August 2, 1776. There is considerable question as to when McKean actually signed the Declaration. He certainly did not do this in August, and although he claimed in old age that he attached his name some time in 1776, it did not appear on the printed copy that was authenticated on January 17, 1777, and it is assumed that he signed after that date.

In July, 1776, he was chairman of the delegates from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and in the same year chairman of the Pennsylvania committees of safety and inspection and the Philadelphia committee of observation. A few days after signing the Declaration of independence he marched at the head of a battalion to Perth Amboy, New Jersey, to re-enforce General Washington until the arrival of the flying camp. On his return to Dover he found a committee awaiting him to urge him to prepare the constitution of the state, which he drew up on the night of his arrival, and which was unanimously adopted by the assembly the next day.

While acting in 1777 in the double capacity of president of Delaware and chief justice of Pennsylvania, he describes himself in a letter to his intimate friend, John Adams, as "hunted like a fox by the enemy, compelled to remove my family five times in three months, and at last fixed them in a little log-house on the banks of the Susquehanna, but they were soon obliged to move again on account of the incursions of the Indians."

As a delegate to the Continental Congress he was present when the Articles of Confederation were ratified on March 1, 1781. By virtue of this ratification the ever fluid Continental Congress ceased to exist and on March 2nd "The United States in Congress Assembled" was placed at the head of each page of the Official Journal of Congress. The United States of America which was conceived on July 2, 1776 had finally been born in 1781 under the Presidency of Samuel Huntington.

By May of 1781, President Huntington's health began to fail. Huntington, despite the pleadings of the delegates tendered his resignation as President on July 6, 1781. The United States in Congress Assembled Journals reported:

"The President having informed the United States in Congress assembled, that his ill state of health" ... not permit him to continue longer in the exercise of the duties of that office".

Congress held off electing a new President until July 10th in the hope that Huntington would recover and reconsider. On July 10th Delegate Thomas McKean was elected as the second President of the United States in Congress Assembled and was first to be elected under the Articles of Confederation as President Huntington assumed the position as the former President of the Continental Congress.

McKean was president of congress in 1781, and in that capacity received Washington's dispatches announcing the surrender of Cornwallis.

So revered was this office by Thomas McKean (Signer of the Declaration of Independence) that the Presidency was used to turn down his party's 1804 nomination for Vice President under Thomas Jefferson saying:

"... President of the United States in Congress Assembled in the year of 1781 (a proud year for Americans) equaled any merit or pretensions of mine and cannot now be increased by the office of Vice President.”

Although McKean's tenure as US President was the most brief it was a eventful period in US History beginning with the duly elected President of the United States in Congress Assembled declining the office:

President Who? Forgotten Founders
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President Who?
Forgotten Founders
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In this landmark work on Early Presidential History, Historian Stanley L. Klos unravels the complex birth of the US Presidency while providing captivating biographies on the Four Presidents of the Continental Congress and ten Presidents of the United States before George Washington. The book is filled with actual photographs of Pre-Constitutional letters, resolutions, treaties, and laws enacted by the Confederation Congress and signed by the Presidents of the Confederation Congress as “President of the United States.”

From the United Colonies Birth in 1774 to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 the author clearly and concisely maps out the role and duties of the Presidents who led the fledging nation through the Revolutionary War and the formation of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. Accounts include the birth of the Presidency and the United Colonies in Philadelphia’s City Tavern (Yes the first “convening” of the Continental Congress occurred in a tavern), the US Capitol “road show” as it moved from town to town fleeing the British Military Forces, the 1781ratification of the Articles of Confederation in Philadelphia forming the first US Presidency, the entire US Government being held hostage in Independence Hall in 1783 by its own Military, the near collapse of Confederation Government in 1786 due to its failure to govern under the threat of Shay’s Rebellion, the rebirth of the United States under the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 called to revise the Articles of Confederation and finally President Abraham Lincoln’s use of the Articles of Confederation as his central legal argument to “Preserve the Perpetual Union of the United States of America” in 1861.

President Who? Forgotten Founders brings to life the Presidential Personalities from 1774 to 1788 and most importantly sets the historical record straight on Who, Samuel Huntington not George Washington, was the First US President and which State, Virginia not Delaware, was the first to form the Perpetual Union of the United States of America.

Click Here to View Norwich Bulletin Feb. 19, 2004 Story

PRAISE FOR
President Who? Forgotten Founders

This is a brilliant and most enjoyable book which helps us to rediscover our rich history and heritage. Stan Klos clearly establishes that Virginia -- not Delaware -- became the first State in the Perpetual Union of the United States America ... because it was the first to ratify the Articles of Confederation (1779). You too will want to read his documentation complete with photographs and facsimiles of primary source documents of our lively and enlightening Americana history.

-- G. William Thomas, Jr., President,
James Monroe Memorial Foundation

A well-written and extremely thought provoking piece of historical scholarship. By using extensive primary source materials, Stan Klos effectively proves his point that from 1781 to 1789 ten men served as President of the United States in Congress Assembled. Mr. Klos does not wish to displace George Washington as "Father of Our Country." Rather, Mr. Klos is seeking recognition for Washington's predecessors. A must read for anyone interested in American Presidential history.

-- Greg Priore
Archivist, William R. Oliver Special Collections Room
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh

It is a masterpiece in defining presidential history. Stanley Klos clearly presents the historic path of the presidency beginning with the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled Samuel Huntington, to the eleventh President, George Washington. It is a must read for any serious student of American History.

-- Senator Bill Stanley
President of the Norwich Historical Society

… a thought provoking argument for “righting” our history books about the very early years of our democracy. Samuel Huntington, His Excellency the President of the United States in Congress Assembled, indeed!

- Lee Langston-Harrison, Curator
James Madison’s Montpelier

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