William Jackson (March 9, 1759 – December 17, 1828) was a figure in the

American Revolution The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...

and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as

secretary A secretary, administrative assistant, executive assistant, personal secretary, or other similar titles is an individual whose work consists of supporting management, including executives, using a variety of project management, program evalu ...

to the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention, and as part of his duties added his signature to the

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. He also served with distinction in the

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during the Revolutionary War. After the war, he served as one of President

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's personal secretaries.

Early life

Jackson was born in Cumberland, England, on March 9, 1759. He was sent to

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

, after his parents died, and was raised by a family friend and prominent merchant, Owen Roberts, who was the commander of a militia battalion. After the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

began in 1775, Roberts joined the Patriot side, and Jackson, then a teenager, followed. Roberts likely helped Jackson to obtain a position as a cadet in the 1st South Carolina Regiment. In May 1776 Jackson was commissioned as a second lieutenant.

Career

Revolutionary War

Jackson first saw action near

, in June 1776, when his regiment fought off General Henry Clinton's attempted attack on Fort Sullivan. The unit then spent a long period garrisoning Charleston, during which Charles Cotesworth Pinckney assumed command of the 1st South Carolina. In late 1777, Jackson was part of the detachment that made an ill-conceived and poorly conducted expedition against St. Augustine in British East Florida under Major General Robert Howe. The expedition was a colossal failure, and the American force was struck down by disease. Jackson, however, survived, and returned to South Carolina in 1778. After returning from Florida, the Southern regiments were placed under the command of Major General Benjamin Lincoln from

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. Pinckney convinced Lincoln that as a Northerner, he needed an aide to assist him in relating to his Southern troops. Jackson was chosen for this position and was temporarily promoted to the rank of major. As Lincoln's aide he saw action in the Battle of Stono Ferry and the Siege of Savannah in 1779. In 1780, General Lincoln surrendered his troops after the lengthy siege of Charleston. As a captured officer, Jackson was shipped to

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, then held by the British. After a few months he was returned to the

in an exchange of prisoners. A skilled staff officer, Jackson was then assigned to the staff of

general

, serving as secretary to the general's aide John Laurens, son of Henry Laurens of South Carolina. When Laurens was sent to France in 1781 armed with a memorial written by Washington outlining why a sizable loan (25 million livres) was needed, he took Thomas Paine and Jackson, who was fluent in French. For six weeks, they dealt unsuccessfully at Versaille with Foreign Affairs Minister Vergennes, a longtime diplomat who wanted England tied up in an American war but knew the precarious situation of France's own finances. Against the advice of

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...

, direct contact was made with the king, and Washington's memorial was handed to him. The following day, the king directed Finance Minister Jacques Necker to meet with them. The loan was made, the bulk of it for military supplies, including three million in gold specie, with the promise that France would underwrite with Dutch agents a later loan for 10 million should it be needed. Purchases began, and by early May Laurens sailed with 3 ships and Jackson went to Holland where

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had contracted with a captain for a fourth ship. That ship vanished, either because Adams had been deceived about the honesty of the captain or because the British Navy, with orders to hunt down all four ships, had sunk it. The three ships, however, arrived in Boston in early September. Jackson returned to the United States in February 1782, and served as assistant secretary of war under Benjamin Lincoln. After helping settle the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, he resigned his office and his commission in October 1783 to become Robert Morris's agent in England.

Constitutional Convention

When Jackson returned the following year, he studied law with

lawyer William Lewis. As an impoverished law student, Jackson wrote to Washington in 1787, applying for the post of secretary to the Philadelphia Convention. On the Convention's first day of business, May 25, 1787,

Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 dur ...

nominated Jackson to the post, and the delegates chose him over William Temple Franklin, Benjamin Franklin's grandson, despite the latter's experience serving as his grandfather's secretary during the Treaty of Paris negotiations. As the Convention secretary, Jackson was responsible for maintaining the secrecy of the Convention's proceedings, keeping official minutes, and destroying many of the proceedings' other records. He signed the document "Attest William Jackson Secretary" to attest to four corrections which had been made to the document. Jackson was sent to the

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, assembled in

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, with a copy of the Constitution, and was honored to read it out to the Congress just days after the signing, on September 20, 1787.

Secretary of President Washington

Jackson was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1788, but was required to wait two years to practice before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the most lucrative branch of the law; besides this, he was an unpaid volunteer in the Second Philadelphia Light Horse. He applied to be secretary of the United States Senate, but Samuel Allyne Otis was appointed. He then applied to be personal secretary to

after Washington was elected the nation's first

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in the 1788–89 United States presidential election, writing that he had unpaid expenses as a Continental officer and that business was "not congenial to istemper."

Agent to Secretary of War

He served as Washington's personal secretary until 1791, when he left to restart his law practice and work as agent for William Bingham and Secretary of War Henry Knox, who were selling off a large land grant in Maine first acquired by William Duer, first Undersecretary of the Treasury and now bankrupt. Jackson's job was selling land on commission in England and France; among his potential customers was the Committee of Public Safety. They declined to invest their scant funds in Maine land; but Jackson wrote a very favorable report on them back to the United States.

Collector for Port of Philadelphia

He returned to the United States in the summer of 1795, and married Elizabeth Willing, Mrs. Bingham's sister, in November; they were the oldest daughters of Thomas Willing, a rich Philadelphia merchant, related to the Shippens. In January 1796, during his last months in office, Washington, who attended Jackson's wedding, appointed Jackson Collector for the Port of Philadelphia.

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

, another wedding guest, dismissed him in 1801 for politicizing his office.

''Political and Commercial Register''

Jackson then started a Federalist newspaper, the ''Political and Commercial Register'', in Philadelphia. and edited it until 1815.

Society of the Cincinnati

Jackson succeeded Henry Knox in 1799 as secretary generalProceedings of the General Society of the Cincinnati, 1784-1884.
Page 60
/ref> of the

Society of the Cincinnati The Society of the Cincinnati is a lineage society, fraternal, hereditary society founded in 1783 to commemorate the American Revolutionary War that saw the creation of the United States. Membership is largely restricted to descendants of milita ...

, a group of former Continental Army officers. On behalf of the remaining officers of the war, he headed an unsuccessful effort to lobby Congress to grant all veteran Revolutionary officers half-pay for life in 1818. Congress was to pass such a bill in 1826, fifty years after independence, but Jackson was not associated with it; his last public appearance was welcoming the Marquis de Lafayette to Philadelphia. in 1824. He remained secretary general of the society until his death.

Death

On December 18, 1828, at age 69, Jackson died in

, and was interred along with his wife in Christ Church Burial Ground in

, where

was earlier interred in 1790.

References

*Dube, Ann Marie. May 1996. ''A Multitude of Amendments, Alterations and Additions: The Writing and Publicizing of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution of the United States.'' National Park Service. Online

*"George Washington's Household in Philadelphia, 1790-1792." Independence Hall Association. Online

*Vile, John R. "Jackson, William." ''Constitution Day Reference Library.'' ABC CLIO. Online

*Harry M. Ward.
Jackson, William
; American National Biography Online Feb. 2000. Access Date: Tue Oct 13 18:26:02 EDT 2009 *Wright, Robert K. and MacGregor, Morris J., Jr. 1987.

" ''Soldier-Statesmen of the Constitution.''

United States Army Center of Military History The United States Army Center of Military History (CMH) is a directorate within the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. The Institute of Heraldry remains within the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Arm ...

. {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, William 1759 births 1828 deaths American Revolutionary War prisoners of war held by Great Britain Continental Army staff officers People from Cumberland Politicians from Charleston, South Carolina Secretaries Personal secretaries to the president of the United States Signers of the United States Constitution People of South Carolina in the American Revolution British emigrants to the Thirteen Colonies Burials at Christ Church, Philadelphia People from colonial Pennsylvania Founding Fathers of the United States