Pennsylvania: Rights for Radicals

[This is the third post in a series about declarations of rights that the newly independent states adopted in 1776. You can read the first one here and the second post here. We are running the posts in the lead up to a conference called “The Other Declarations of 1776.” Co-sponsored with our friends at the Liberty & Law Center at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, it is an all-day conference (with a free lunch!) in Arlington, Virginia on April 10, 2026. Members of the public—including you!—are very much invited to attend in person. See the details, and register, here!]

As historian Gordon Wood and others (but not everyone) have argued, the American Revolution was radical. It was not called a “revolution” for nothing. Among the swirl of breaks with the past, though, some were more radical than others. Perhaps one of the most radical developments was Pennsylvania’s 1776 Constitution. And part of that radicalism was its Declaration of Rights. This week we turn to that declaration in the lead up to our conference on April 10 in Arlington, Virginia, “The Other Declarations of 1776.”

 As we saw in the most recent post in this series, the committee for the Virginia Declaration of Rights issued its draft proposal on May 27, 1776. The draft was then published in various ways up and down the eastern seaboard. This included Philadelphia. What was going on there?

A Philadelphia story

A lot. First of all, at that time Philly was the home of the Second Continental Congress, which was ramping up to draft and approve the Declaration of Independence mere weeks later. Also, somewhat behind Virginia’s schedule, Pennsylvania was preparing a constitutional convention where it would adopt its post-Independence constitution. The convention began on July 15 and completed its work, and new constitution, on September 28. It was during the first month that most of the work on the Declaration of Rights took place.

The story of the full constitution is much bigger than just the Declaration of Rights, and even more radical. For example, there were no property qualifications for voting (only that the voter pay taxes), the legislature was unicameral with annual elections, and executive power was wielded by a council elected by the legislature itself. This much democracy led John Adams to exclaim “Good God!” and predict the people would soon petition the British Crown itself “to be delivered from the tyranny of their constitution.” That didn’t happen, but the predictions of an excess of democracy proved correct and the state adopted a more standard constitution in 1790.

Virginian with Quaker characteristics

 As for the Declaration it was radical but of the same radical flavor as the draft of George Mason’s Virginia committee from back in May. In part this was because the delegates in Philadelphia used much of the Virginia draft’s language. Under the watch of Benjamin Franklin, who chaired the proceedings, the convention ordered a committee to draft a declaration of rights on July 24 and the full convention adopted the final declaration on August 16. Although provisions weren’t simply copied and pasted from Virginia’s, many have a heavy similarity. Section 1 uses the inspiring language “[t]hat all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and inalienable rights,” (with “inalienable” a Pennsylvanian addition). It also adopted the Virginian injunction that “all elections ought to be free” and that “a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles” is necessary for a free government.

But much was new in Philadelphia, whether taken from prior foundational documents in the colony of Pennsylvania, such as William Penn’s 1701 “Charter of Privileges,” other legal texts, or the inspiration of delegates themselves. Some of that local innovation came from Pennsylvania’s history as a refuge for Quaker immigrants. Of its European settlers, the colony had been majority Quaker until around 1720 and Quakers had dominated its politics until just a generation before the Revolution. With Quakerism’s pacifist inclinations, it is no surprise that the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights protected against compelling “any man who is conscientiously scrupulous of bearing arms,” provided he “pay such equivalent” instead. Further, religious liberty was protected with even stronger language than in Virginia’s declaration with a guarantee, among many other words, that “no man ought or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship.”

“Hath a right to be heard”

 Another addition was the requirement that warrants be backed by “oaths or affirmations first made, affording a sufficient foundation for them”. That would go on to be used in the Fourth Amendment’s mandate that warrants not only be backed by probable cause but that they be “supported by Oath or affirmation”.

Further, as explained in a forthcoming article, “The Accused Speaks,” in the University of Chicago Law Review by Laurent Sacharoff of Denver University, Section IX of the Declaration guaranteed that “a man hath a right to be heard by himself and his council.” These words were added to other language taken from the Virginia draft concerning the rights of the accused. Sacharoff argues that not only did the committee add this language but “heard by himself” was actually a separate right from the right to be heard by council, and was a right long recognized under English common law, including in Pennsylvania. What’s more, Sacharoff makes the claim—for the first time in any scholarship—that “heard by himself” was added by none other than Benjamin Franklin himself. (Read the article for all the interesting details, including a tantalizing suggestion that Franklin may even have got the idea from Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, who was in Philadelphia at the time.)

Given the full constitution, including the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights, wasn’t fully adopted by the convention until September 28, the Declaration became law after that of neighboring Delaware’s. But Pennsylvania’s was actually drafted first. We’ll look at that timing and how it also relates to Maryland’s experience in subsequent posts in this series.

Until then raise a glass to the Philly f(Ph)anatics of 1776—and perhaps counter it with another glass for more “moderate” revolutionaries such as John Adams. Together they made the Revolution what it was, fighting their way through history while experimenting with the best way to protect their inalienable rights.

Anthony Sanders is the Director of the Center for Judicial Engagement at the Institute for Justice.