Have you ever come across the Delaware state quarter and noticed the image of a man riding a horse? Many people have seen it in their change and thought little of it. But that rider is Caesar Rodney—a man whose name is unfamiliar to most, yet whose determination helped change the course of American history.

Rodney was a delegate from Delaware to the Continental Congress in 1776. At the time, the colonies were locked in a fierce debate over the Declaration of Independence. Delaware’s three delegates were split—Thomas McKean supported independence, George Read opposed it, and Rodney, gravely ill at home, had yet to weigh in. The future of the colonies hung on his decision.

Rodney’s health was fragile. He battled painful skin cancer and struggled with asthma, yet when McKean sent word that

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