Abraham Clark
Abraham Clark | |
---|---|
Lambert Cadwalader | |
Succeeded by | Aaron Kitchell |
Personal details | |
Born | Elizabethtown, Province of New Jersey, British America | February 15, 1726
Died | September 15, 1794 Rahway, New Jersey, US | (aged 68)
Resting place | Rahway Cemetery, Rahway, New Jersey |
Political party | Pro-Administration |
Signature | |
Abraham Clark (February 15, 1726 – September 15, 1794) was an American
Early life
Clark was born in
Clark married Sarah Hatfield circa 1749,[3] with whom he had 10 children.[4] While she raised the children on their farm, Clark was able to enter politics as a clerk of the Provincial Assembly. Later he became high sheriff of Essex County and in 1775 was elected to the Provincial Congress. He was a member of the Committee of Public Safety.
Political career
Early in 1776, the New Jersey delegation to the
on June 28, 1776, and voted for the Declaration of Independence in early July.Clark remained in the Continental Congress through 1778, when he was elected as Essex County's Member of the New Jersey Legislative Council. New Jersey returned him twice more, from 1780 to 1783 and from 1786 to 1788. Clark was one of New Jersey's three representatives at the aborted Annapolis Convention of 1786, along with William C. Houston and James Schureman.[6] In an October 12, 1804 letter to Noah Webster, James Madison recalled that Clark was the delegate who formally motioned for the Constitutional Convention, because New Jersey's instructions allowed for consideration of non-commercial matters.[7][8]
Clark, more than many of his contemporaries, was a proponent of democracy and the common man, supporting especially the societal roles of farmers and mechanics. Because of their emphasis on production, Clark saw these occupations as the lifeblood of a virtuous society, and he decried the creditor status of more elite men, usually lawyers, ministers, physicians, and merchants, as an aristocratic threat to the future of republican government.[9] Unlike many Founding Fathers who demanded deference to elected officials, Clark encouraged constituents to petition their representatives when they deemed change necessary.[10]
In May 1786, Clark, aided by thousands of petitions in the preceding months, pushed a pro-debtor paper money bill through the New Jersey legislature.[11] To garner support for the paper money bill and espouse his populist vision for New Jersey's future, Clark, under the pseudonym "A Fellow Citizen," published a forty-page pamphlet entitled The True Policy of New-Jersey, Defined; or, Our Great Strength led to Exertion, in the Improvement of Agriculture and Manufactures, by Altering the Mode of Taxation, and by the Emission of Money on Loan, in IX Sections in February 1786.[12]
Death and legacy
Clark retired before the state's
See also
- List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)
- Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence
Notes
- ISBN 978-0199832576.
- Washington Post. Retrieved January 30, 2022.
- ^ Bogin, p. 163
- ^ Bogin, p. 166
- ^ Bogin, pp. 38-41
- ^ Bogin, p.132.
- ^ Bogin, pp. 132-133
- ^ Brant, pp. 384-386.
- ^ Bogin, pp. 32-37.
- ^ Bogin, p. 37.
- ^ Bogin, "New Jersey's True Policy: The Radical Republican Vision of Abraham Clark." William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 35 (1978): p. 107.
- ^ Bogin, pp. 160-161.
- ^ Staff. "HOUSE OF ABRAHAM CLARK, A SIGNER, WILL BE REBUILT; Duplicate of Rahway Home to Memorialize Him and Two Sons as Revolutionary Patriots", The New York Times, February 6, 1927. Accessed September 21, 2015. "ABRAHAM CLARK, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, is to be honored by the erection of a memorial house in his home town, Rahway, N.J."
- ^ Dodge, Andrew R. (2005) Biographical directory of the United States Congress 1774–2005, p. 824
References
- Bogin, Ruth, Abraham Clark and the Quest for Equality in the Revolutionary Era, 1774-1794. Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982.
- Brant, Irving. James Madison: The Nationalist, 1780-1787, Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948.