[1] Being under the same proprietor and the same governor,
Pennsylvania and Delaware were so closely connected before the
Revolution that there was an interchange of public men.
[2] The "Declaration of the United Colonies of North America ...
setting forth the Causes and the Necessity of their Taking up Arms"
(often erroneously attributed to Thomas Jefferson).
DICKSON, SIR ALEXANDER (1777-1840), British artillerist, entered the
Royal Military Academy in 1793, passing out as second lieutenant in the
Royal Artillery in the following year. As a subaltern he saw service in
Minorca in 1798 and at Malta in 1800. As a captain he took part in the
unfortunate Montevideo Expedition of 1806-07, and in 1809 he accompanied
Howorth to the Peninsular War as brigade-major of the artillery. He soon
obtained a command in the Portuguese artillery, and as a
lieutenant-colonel of the Portuguese service took part in the various
battles of 1810-11. At the two sieges of Budazoz, Ciudad Rodrigo, the
Salamanca forts and Burgos, he was entrusted by Wellington (who had the
highest opinion of him) with most of the detailed artillery work, and at
Salamanca battle he commanded the reserve artillery. In the end he
became commander of the whole of the artillery of the allied army, and
though still only a substantive captain in the British service he had
under his orders some 8000 men. At Vitoria, the Pyrenees battles and
Toulouse he directed the movements of the artillery engaged, and at the
end of the war received handsome presents from the officers who had
served under him, many of whom were his seniors in the army list. He was
at the disastrous affair of New Orleans, but returned to Europe in time
for the Waterloo campaign. He was present at Quatre Bras and Waterloo on
the artillery staff of Wellington's army, and subsequently commanded the
British battering train at the sieges of the French fortresses left
behind the advancing allies. For the rest of his life he was on home
service, principally as a staff officer of artillery. He died, a
major-general and G.C.B., in 1840. A memorial was erected at Woolwich in
1847. Dickson was one of the earliest fellows of the Royal Geographical
Society.
His diaries kept in the Peninsula were the main source of information
used in Duncan's _History of the Royal Artillery_.
DICKSON, SIR JAMES ROBERT (1832-1901), Australian statesman, was born in
Plymouth on the 30th of November 1832. He was brought up in Glasgow,
receiving his education at the high school, and became a clerk in the
City of Glasgow Bank. In 1854 he emigrated to Victoria, but after some
years spent in that colony and in New South Wales, he settled in 1862 in
Queensland, where he was connected with many important business
enterprises, among them the Royal Bank of Queensland. He entered the
Queensland House of Assembly in 1872, and became minister of works
(1876), treasurer (1876-1879, and 1883-1887), acting premier (1884), but
resigned in 1887 on the question of taxing land. In 1889 he retired from
business, and spent three years in Europe before resuming political
life. He fought for the introduction of Polynesian labour on the
Queensland sugar plantations at the general election of 1892, and was
elected to the House of Assembly in that year and again at the elections
of 1893 and 1896. He became secretary for railways in 1897, minister for
home affairs in 1898, represented Queensland in the federal council of
Australia in 1896 and at the postal conference at Hobart in 1898, and in
1898 became premier. His energies were now devoted to the formation of
an Australian commonwealth. He secured the reference of the question to
a plebiscite, the result of which justified his anticipations. He
resigned the premiership in November 1899, but in the ministry of Robert
Philp, formed in the next month, he was reappointed to the offices of
chief secretary and vice-president of the executive council which he had
combined with the office of premier. He represented Queensland in 1900
at the conference held in London to consider the question of Australian
unity, and on his return was appointed minister of defence in the first
government of the Australian Commonwealth. He did not long survive the
accomplishment of his political aims, dying at Sydney on the 10th of
January 1901, in the midst of the festivities attending the inauguration
of the new state.
DICOTYLEDONS, in botany, the larger of the two great classes of
angiosperms, embracing most of the common flower-bearing plants. The
name expresses the most universal character of the class, the importance
of which was first noticed by John Ray, namely, the presence of a pair
of seed-leaves or cotyledons, in the plantlet or embryo contained in the
seed. The embryo is generally surrounded by a larger or smaller amount
of foodstuff (endosperm) which serves to nourish it in its development
to form a seedling when the seed germinates; frequently, however, as in
pea or bean and their allies, the whole of the nourishment for future
use is stored up in the cotyledons themselves, which then become thick
and fleshy. In germination of the seed the root of the embryo (radicle)
grows out to get a holdfast for the plant; this is generally followed by
the growth of the short stem immediately above the root, the so-called
"hypocotyl," which carries up the cotyledons above the ground, where
they spread to the light and become the first green leaves of the plant.
Protected between the cotyledons and terminating the axis of the plant
is the first stem-bud (the plumule of the embryo), by the further growth
and development of which the aerial portion of the plant, consisting of
stem, leaves and branches, is formed, while the development of the
radicle forms the root-system. The size and manner of growth of the
adult plant show a great variety, from the small herb lasting for one
season only, to the forest tree living for centuries. The arrangement of
the conducting tissue in the stem is characteristic; a transverse
section of the very young stem shows a number of distinct conducting
strands--vascular bundles--arranged in a ring round the pith; these soon
become united to form a closed ring of bast and wood, separated by a
layer of formative tissue (cambium). In perennials the stem shows a
regular increase in thickness each year by the addition of a new ring of
wood outside the old one--for details of structure see PLANTS: Anatomy.
A similar growth occurs in the root. This increase in the diameter of
stem and root is correlated with the increase in leaf-area each season,
due to the continued production of new leaf-bearing branches. A
characteristic of the class is afforded by the complicated network
formed by the leaf-veins,--well seen in a skeleton leaf, from which the
soft parts have been removed by maceration. The parts of the flower are
most frequently arranged in fives, or multiples of fives; for instance,
a common arrangement is as follows,--five sepals, succeeded by five
petals, ten stamens in two sets of five, and five or fewer carpels; an
arrangement in fours is less frequent, while the arrangement in threes,
so common in monocotyledons, is rare in dicotyledons. In some orders the
parts are numerous, chiefly in the case of the stamens and the carpels,
as in the buttercup and other members of the order Ranunculaceae. There
is a very wide range in the general structure and arrangement of the
parts of the flower, associated with the means for ensuring the
transference of pollen; in the simplest cases the flower consists only
of a few stamens or carpels, with no enveloping sepals or petals, as in
the willow, while in the more elaborate type each series is represented,
the whole forming a complicated structure closely correlated with the
size, form and habits of the pollinating agent (see FLOWER). The
characters of the fruit and seed and the means for ensuring the
dispersal of the seeds are also very varied (see FRUIT).
DICTATOR (from the Lat. _dictare_, frequentative of _dicere_, to speak).
In modern usage this term is loosely used for a personal ruler enjoying
extraordinary and extra-constitutional power. The etymological sense of
one who "dictates"--i.e. one whose word (_dictum_) is law (from which
that of one who "dictates," i.e. speaks for some writer to record, is to
be distinguished)--has been assisted by the historical use of the term,
in ancient times, for an extraordinary magistrate in the Roman
commonwealth. It is unknown precisely how the Roman word came into use,
though an explanation of the earlier official title, magister populi,
throws some light on the subject. That designation may mean "head of the
(infantry) host" as opposed to his subordinate, the magister equitum,
who was "head of the cavalry." If this explanation be accepted, emphasis
was thus laid in early times on the military aspect of the dictatorship,
and in fact the office seems to have been instituted for the purpose of
meeting a military crisis such as might have proved too serious for the
annual consuls with their divided command. Later constitutional theory
held that the repression of civil discord was also one of the motives
for the institution of a dictatorship. Such is the view expressed by
Cicero in the _De legibus_ (iii. 3, 9) and by the emperor Claudius in
his extant _Oratio_ (i. 28). This function of the office, although it
may not have been contemplated at first, is attested by the internal
history of Rome. In the crisis of the agitation that gathered round the
Licinian laws (367 B.C.) a dictator was appointed, and in 314 B.C. we
have the notice of a dictator created for purposes of criminal
jurisdiction (_quaestionibus exercendis_). The dictator appointed to
meet the dangers of war, sedition or crime was technically described as
"the administrative dictator" (_rei gerundae causa_). Minor, or merely
formal, needs of the state might lead to the creation of other types of
this office. Thus we find dictators destined to hold the elections, to
make out the list of the senate, to celebrate games, to establish
festivals, and to drive the nail into the temple of Jupiter--an act of
natural magic which was believed to avert pestilence. These dictators
appointed for minor purposes were expected to retire from office as soon
as their function was completed. The "administrative dictator" held
office for at least six months.
The powers of a dictator were a temporary revival of those of the kings;
but there were some limitations to his authority. He was never concerned
with civil jurisdiction, and was dependent on the senate for supplies of
money. His military authority was confined to Italy; and his power of
life and death over the citizens was at an early period limited by law.
It was probably the _lex Valeria_ of 300 B.C. that made him subject to
the right of criminal appeal (_provocatio_) within the limits of the
city. But during his tenure of power all the magistrates of the people
were regarded as his subordinates; and it was even held that the right
of assistance (_auxilium_), furnished by the tribunes of the plebs to
members of the citizen body, should not be effectively exercised when
the state was under this type of martial law. The dictator was nominated
by one of the consuls. But here as elsewhere the senate asserted its
authority over the magistrates, and the view was finally held that the
senate should not only suggest the need of nomination but also the name
of the nominee. After the nomination, the imperium of the dictator was
confirmed by a _lex curiata_ (see COMITIA). To emphasize the superiority
of this imperium over that of the consuls, the dictator might be
preceded by twenty-four lictors, not by the usual twelve; and, at least
in the earlier period of the office, these lictors bore the axes, the
symbols of life and death, within the city walls.
Tradition represents the dictatorship as having a life of three
centuries in the history of the Roman state. The first dictator is said
to have been created in 501 B.C.; the last of the "administrative"
dictators belongs to the year 216 B.C. It was an office that was
incompatible both with the growing spirit of constitutionalism and with
the greater security of the city; and the epoch of the Second Punic War
was marked by experiments with the office, such as the election of Q.
Fabius Maximus by the people, and the co-dictatorship of M. Minucius
with Fabius, which heralded its disuse (see PUNIC WARS). The emergency
office of the early and middle Republic has few points of contact,
except those of the extraordinary position and almost unfettered
authority of its holder, with the dictatorship as revised by Sulla and
by Caesar. Sulla's dictatorship was the form taken by a provisional
government. He was created "for the establishment of the Republic." It
is less certain whether the dictatorships held by Caesar were of a
consciously provisional character. Since the office represented the only
supreme _Imperium_ in Rome, it was the natural resort of the founder of
a monarchy (see SULLA and CAESAR). Ostensibly to prevent its further use
for such a purpose, M. Antonius in 44 B.C. carried a law abolishing the
dictatorship as a part of the constitution.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Mommsen, _Romisches Staatsrecht_, ii. 141 foll. (3rd
ed., Leipzig, 1887); Herzog, _Geschichte und System der romischen
Staatsverfassung_, i. 718 foll. (Leipzig, 1884); Pauly-Wissowa,
_Realencyclopadie_, v. 370 foll. (new edition, Stuttgart. 1893, &c.);
Lange, _Romische Alterthumer_, i. 542 foll. (Berlin, 1856, &c.);
Daremberg-Saglio, _Dictionnaire des antiquites grecques et romaines_,
ii. 161 foll. (1875, &c.); Haverfield, "The Abolition of the
Dictatorship," in _Classical Review_, iii. 77. (A. H. J. G.)