Caeser Rodney served as one of three delegates representing Delaware during the Continental Congress. The debates regarding the final draft of The Declaration of Independence were beginning to wind down; Rodney therefore went home due to ill health, having suffered from asthma and a form of cancer that disfigured the skin on his face. He never imagined his vote would be necessary.
A bachelor at 48, he knew of doctors in his Mother Country who had promising treatments for his ailments, yet was torn by this; does he return home to seek treatment, or stay in his new home and fight for freedom, unltimately losing any chance to survive?
His answer came when a message arrive from Philadelpiha; the vote regarding independence was tied. The Congress needed Rodney's vote immediatley.
With British soldiers following not far behind, Rodney traveled hastily the 80 miles through the wind and rain, muddy dirt roads and humid air. By the time he reached Philadelphia on 2 July, his face was so bloody and aggravated from exposure he had wrapped his skin in linens, his breath labored from the humidty of the summer air.
A fellow delegate from Delaware remembers Rodney's entrance as being a dramatic one, as the dusty and tired man burst through the doors during the last minutes of the debate. He recalled Rodney to have said the following before passing out:
"As I believe the voice of my constituents and of all sensible and honest men is in favor of independence, my own judgement concurs with them. I vote for independence."
Rondey died in June of 1784; still a bachelor with no children, no one is certain of his date of death. His grave went unmarked for over a century.
Today, the man who saved our country, quite literally, with his vote, is immortalized on the Delaware state coin by a picture of a man riding horseback; now you know "the rest of the story"...
