George Read - Signers Of The U.S. Constitution Canvas Print

George Read was born in 1733 on his father's plantation in Maryland. At seventeen, he went to Philadelphia where he studied law. He earned admittance to the bar two years later in 1753. His brother-in-law, John Ross, arranged for Read to replace him as Delaware's attorney general, an office he then held until the Revolutionary War. Read was elected to the Delaware legislature in 1765, and to the first Continental Congress in 1774. Although he thought the calling for independence was premature, he signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Read attended the Annapolis Convention and, later the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where he emerged as an important spokesman for the small states. He preferred Alexander Hamilton's plan of government, which called for a national executive and a Senate, both elected for life. Read also wanted to eliminate the states as part of the new government. He expressed his opinion that "There can be no cure for this evil but in doing away with States...