38 of 56 · Maryland
STONE
A Moderate's Guide
28 lessons. 4 chapters. In his own words.
He wanted reconciliation until there was none left, signed, then outlived his wife by four months. Not every founder died of glory.
Thomas Stone · 1743–1787 · Lawyer · moderate · mourner
01
Wait Until You Cannot
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Exhaust the last honest delay.
“I would have given the world if the question could have been postponed, until we had made a last trial of petition.”
Maryland's moderate. Young. Not eager for a cliff. Waiting is a discipline if it is not a hiding place. Know the date on which waiting becomes complicity.
Late is still a time of day.
“The Convention of Maryland, on the 28th of June, authorized their deputies to concur in a declaration of independence.”
Proceedings of the Maryland Convention · 1776
Five days before the vote in Congress. He had waited. Then the instruction flipped and he used it. A converted moderate is worth more in the minutes than a born radical. He brings the middle.
Do not confuse patience with hope as a policy.
“Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
He read that line with more regret than Chase. Regret does not strike it out. When the petitions bounce, stop printing them. The wait had a receipt. It came back stamped no.
Youth is not a reason to rush or to hide.
“He was thirty-three, a lawyer of Charles County, and not yet in love with rupture.”
Maryland record of Thomas Stone · 1776
Youngest of Maryland's four. Age does not vote. Judgment does. Bring the caution of a man who expects to live in what he breaks.
Do not move too quick. Do not be wheedled either.
“The proper way to affect this is not to move too quick. But then we must take care to do everything which is necessary for our security and defense, not suffer ourselves to be lulled or wheedled by any deceptions.”
Both clauses. The second is how the first avoids becoming Toryism. Delay that still powders the magazine is statesmanship. Delay that waits on a kind word from London is a lullaby. Know which you are singing.
Want peace. Prefer rights if peace will not come.
“You know my heart wishes for peace upon terms of security and justice to America. But war, anything, is preferable to a surrender of our rights.”
The order of loves is the whole moderate. Peace first. Rights always. He named the floor he would not go below. Write your floor down before the hour that tests it. Then the wait has a meaning.
Youngest in the Maryland row is still old enough to wait well.
“At thirty-three he was the youngest of the Maryland signers, and the least in a hurry.”
Maryland record of Thomas Stone · 1776
Youth is told to be ardent. He was careful. That is allowed. A young moderate is not a coward if the floor is rights and the wait has a clock. Be the age you are. Do not perform a fire you do not feel.
02
Prefer the Peace
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Prefer the peace while there is one.
“Reconciliation upon honourable terms is still to be wished, if it can be had without the surrender of our rights.”
Attributed to Thomas Stone · 1775
Honourable is the word that does the work. Peace at any price is a different product. He wanted the first. The Crown offered neither. Wanting peace is not a sin. Selling the rights for it is.
Draft the league even as you dread the war.
“He sat on the committee of thirteen that framed the Articles of Confederation.”
Journals of the Continental Congress · 1776
A moderate's committee. If you fear the break, you are qualified to design the substitute. Radicals declare. Moderates have to make the thing run on Tuesdays.
Do not sneer at the olive branch until you have held it.
“The Olive Branch Petition was adopted in July of 1775, and answered with a proclamation of rebellion.”
Journals of Congress / Royal proclamation · 1775
He was the sort of man who meant that petition. When it failed, he still had a job. Failure of peace is information. File it. Move.
A temperament is not a strategy.
“The systems of simple democracy are fraught with tumult; yet dependence is no longer a shelter.”
Attributed, Maryland moderate correspondence · 1776
He feared both anarchy and the king. Good. Fear is a compass if you still walk. Strategy is what you do after the feeling has been named.
Say the dye is cast when it is, and hate the sight.
“The Dye is cast. The fatal Stab is given to any future Connection between this Country and Britain, except in the relation of Conqueror and vanquished, which I cannot think of without Horror and Indignation.”
Thomas Stone to James Holyday · 1776
He did not cheer the rupture. He named it. Horror and indignation at conquest is not loyalty to a king. It is a man who understood the bill. Prefer the peace. When it dies, write the obituary without a party hat.
Sign the olive branch. Then notice it was refused.
“He put his name to the petition for reconciliation, and then watched the Crown answer with more war.”
Journals of the Continental Congress · 1775
The Olive Branch was not naivete. It was a file. Later men would say no other road was tried. He had tried it. Exhaust the decent gesture. Keep the receipt. Then you may break without lying about how you got there.
A temperament that loves peace still has to join a war.
“I wish to conduct affairs so that a just and honorable reconciliation should take place, or that we should be unanimous in a resolution to fight it out for independence.”
The or is the hinge. Reconciliation or a unanimous fight. He got the second. Moderates who will not honor their own or become the drag on other men's courage. Honor it.
03
Then Sign
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When the wait expires, use the pen.
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
He signed. Not loudly. Not as a conversion narrative. As a lawyer who had run out of continuances. The parchment does not grade enthusiasm. It grades ink.
Carry the middle into the yes.
“Maryland's deputies, being now instructed, did concur.”
Proceedings of the Maryland Convention and Congress · 1776
His name next to Chase's is the point. The province could see itself in Stone. If only the firebrands sign, the paper is a sect. If the cautious sign, it is a country.
Then go home. Not all work is Congress.
“He declined further distant service and gave his remaining strength to Maryland and to a house that needed him.”
Maryland record of Thomas Stone · 1777
National service is not a life sentence. He had a wife growing ill and a state that still needed lawyers. Leaving the big room can be a form of keeping the pledge.
A reluctant name is still a name.
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
Unanimous includes the men who hated the necessity. That is what makes the word expensive. If you needed to be thrilled to sign, you did not understand the wager.
Pray for the crushing once the wait is closed.
“May God send Victory to the Arm lifted in Support of righteousness, Virtue and Freedom, and crush even to destruction the power which wantonly would trample on the rights of mankind.”
Thomas Stone to the Maryland Council of Safety · 1776
July 12. The cautious man could pray for a crushing. That is what a closed wait looks like. You may hate war and still ask that the right arm win. Ink, then a prayer without syrup. Then home.
Maryland needed a Stone so it was not a faction.
“With Paca, Chase and Carroll, he signed the engrossed Declaration on the second of August.”
Maryland and congressional record · 1776
The firebrands needed a Stone on the paper so Maryland was not a faction. Moderates who refuse to sign leave the country to its extremes. Get in the column. Your reluctance is part of the proof.
The signature was a sentence, not a lifestyle.
“He sat the Maryland senate, worked the Articles, and did not make a career of the hall in Philadelphia.”
Maryland record of Thomas Stone · 1777
The signature was a sentence, not a lifestyle. Local jurisdiction, a league of states, a law practice. Founding that never comes home becomes vanity. Do the next useful room.
04
The Remainder
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Leave the convention for the sickroom.
“He was chosen to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, and went home to a dying wife instead of staying to argue a constitution.”
Records of the Federal Convention / Maryland notices · 1787
Margaret Stone was the remainder of his private life. He chose her over another founding. That is not a failure of patriotism. It is a ranking of vows. Rank them in advance.
Not every founder dies of glory.
“She died in June. He followed in October, in his forty-fifth year, and the neighbors called it grief.”
Family and Maryland notices of Thomas Stone · 1787
Four months. No battlefield. No scaffold. A house in Charles County and a man who ran out. The library still owes him a chapter. Glory was never the only way out.
A short life can still complete a public sentence.
“We mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The Declaration of Independence · 1776
He pledged a life and paid it to fever and sorrow rather than to a redcoat. The pledge did not specify the instrument. Keep the honor even when the death is ordinary.
Do not require a monument of the moderate.
“Haberdeventure was his house. The name on the parchment was his monument.”
Charles County record of Thomas Stone · 1787
Visit the house if you like. The lesson does not need the brick. A man waited, preferred peace, signed, went home, and ended. That is a complete life in a bad century.
History will have another delegate. You will not have another wife.
“The illness of a wife I esteem most dearly preys most severely on my Spirits.”
Elected to the Constitutional Convention. Did not go. Margaret was dying of the inoculation that was supposed to save her. History will always have another delegate. You will not have another wife. Choose.
Outlive her by four months. That is also a death.
“Margaret died in 1787; he followed on the fifth of October, at Alexandria, aged forty-five, having declined a voyage meant for her recovery.”
Family and Maryland notices of Thomas Stone · 1787
The trip to England was for her. She was gone. He went as far as the dock and stopped. Not every founder dies of glory. Some die of a house that has lost its occupant. Permit that. It is true.
Habre de Venture will hold. The man does not have to.
“He was buried in the family ground near the house, two hundred yards from the door he had built for her.”
Charles County record of Thomas Stone · 1787
The house still stands and wears a park's name. He does not. A moderate's monument is often just a well-sited grave and a name on a list. Do not require a statue. Require that the wait ended in a signature, and that the grief was not performed. It was survived, briefly. Then not.