Amazon.com description: Product Description: Seldom has a life been more completely dedicated to the cause of liberty - or more cursorily dismissed by historians - than that of Thomas McKean. Until now, he has been remembered, if alt all, as a Signer of the Declaration of Independence. But with this prodigious and fascinatingly detailed work, the result of twenty years of scholarly research, "this law-and-order man at the center of the storm" at last assumes his rightful place in American history as one of the most important leaders of the Revolution. - During his term in the Continental Congress, in which he was to serve longer than any other member - ultimately as its President, McKean held positions of strategic influence in both Delaware and Pennsylvania. As a member of the radical faction, he exercised his vital role as a "Philadelawarean" with consummate political adroitness. Unfortunately, his instructions from the government of Delaware to work for "the security and happiness of the whole British empire" - prevented him from speaking his mind openly until the last critical days before the Declaration of Independence. Because so much of his momentous work had to be accomplished behind the scenes, McKean's long continued services to the cause of independence have never been fully recognized.