Lawyer and political reformer, born in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Admitted to the bar in 1827, he was elected to the Rhode Island assembly in 1834. Taking the lead in efforts to establish a state constitution that would abolish such anti-democratic practices as the requirement that only adult males who owned a good amount of land could vote, he formed a People's Party that adopted a constitution. He was elected governor (1842), and in the ensuing rebellion against the established government, a minor civil war broke out in Rhode Island. Arrested and charged with treason, he was sentenced to life imprisonment (1844) but was released in 1845. He retired in poor health, but a new constitution did embody some of his goals.
Thomas Wilson Dorr (November 5, 1805 – December 27, 1854) was a U.S. lawyer and political figure. His most significant achievement came in 1842 when he drafted a liberal constitution for Rhode Island which was passed by popular referendum.
In 1842, two elections were held in Rhode Island under both Dorr's constitution and the existing state charter. The Dorr Rebellion was quickly crushed and Dorr fled the state.
The old order recognized the need for a new constitution and enacted a new one in 1843 which contained some of Dorr's concepts. In 1844, Dorr returned to Rhode Island and was arrested. He was convicted of treason against the state of Rhode Island.
Rhode Island's state government includes Dorr in its list of governors. Though living in an age of anti-Irish nativism and anti-Catholicism, Dorr's progressive, liberal reform ideology included extending suffrage rights to the propertyless and the foreign born.
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