View TEI
Introduction
In this letter to Dutee Pearce, a confident Dorr talks about the rising tide of public support for the People’s Constitution. He believes his opponents, the “Tories,” a reference to loyalists to the British Crown during the American Revolution, are on the ropes. Dorr references Rhode Island Chief Justice Job Durfee, an arch-conservative. On March 15, Durfee delivered a stinging rebuke to Dorr’s ideological positions to a grand jury convened in Bristol comparing the Dorrites to French Revolutionaries and defining their actions as treasonous. Durfee’s address was published in the press and later appeared in pamphlet form. Students can access the pamphlet on the Dorr Rebellion Project website.