John Hickman was born on September 11, 1810, in West Bradford Township, Pennsylvania.

Hickman was taught English and classical studies by private tutors.

He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Revolutionary Pensions during the Thirty-fifth Congress and the United States House Committee on the Judiciary during the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses.

[1] At the 1860 Republican National Convention, Hickman finished 3rd in the race for the vice-presidential nomination, behind Hannibal Hamlin and Cassius Clay.

[4] At a political dinner in Philadelphia a week after South Carolina declared secession from the Union, Hickman made a fiery speech calling for war, reported on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer on December 29, 1860:[5] The time for action has arrived; every man must define his position; there is an eternal conflict between freedom and slavery; truces which will last cannot be formed between them.

But with all the banded seceding States and their traitor friends, we will yet save the Union.

The South thinks the North is craven, and our Union-saving merchants encourage that belief.

He was one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1862 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Tennessee judge West H.

[2] After his political career, Hickman resumed the practice of law and continued until 1875.

[2] Hickman died on March 23, 1875, at his home in West Chester.