Caesar Rodney (October 7, 1728 – June 26, 1784)[2] was an American Founding Father, lawyer, and politician from St. Jones Neck in Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware.

Rodney was born on October 7, 1728, on his family's plantation, "Byfield", on St. Jones Neck in East Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware.

The farm earned sufficient income from the sale of wheat and barley to the Philadelphia and West Indies markets to provide enough cash and leisure to allow members of the family to participate in the social and political life of Kent County.

[3] Thomas Rodney described his brother at this time as having a "great fund of wit and humor of the pleasing kind, so that his conversation was always bright and strong and conducted by wisdom..."[10] He lived as a bachelor, was generally esteemed and was indeed very popular.

[3] This was a powerful and financially rewarding position, in that it supervised elections and chose the grand jurors who set the county tax rate.

During the French and Indian War, he was commissioned captain of the Dover Hundred company in Col. John Vining's regiment of the Delaware militia.

The minority Country Party was largely Ulster-Scot, centered in New Castle County, and quickly advocated independence from the British.

Rodney joined McKean as a delegate to the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 and was a leader of the Delaware Committee of Correspondence.

[3] Rodney was in Dover tending to Loyalist activity in Sussex County when he received word from McKean that he and Read were deadlocked on the vote for independence.

[13][15] Upon learning of the death of his friend John Haslet at the Battle of Princeton, Rodney rushed to the Continental Army to try to fill his place.

[18] Rodney, as major-general of the Delaware militia, protected the state from British military intrusions and controlled continued Loyalist activity, particularly in Sussex County, site of the 1780 Black Camp Rebellion.

Amidst the catastrophic events following the Battle of Brandywine and the British occupation of Wilmington and Philadelphia, a new General Assembly was elected in October 1777.

Rodney was elected by the Delaware General Assembly to the United States Congress under the Articles of Confederation in 1782 and 1783 but was unable to attend because of ill health.

His health was now in rapid decline and even though the Legislative Council met at his home for a short time, he died before the session ended.

He is portrayed as an elderly man suffering severely from facial cancer, and he has to be taken home by fellow Delaware delegate Thomas McKean.