Rawle, William

Rawle, William

(1759–1836) lawyer; born in Philadelphia. A Loyalist, he studied law in England during the American Revolution but returned to his native city and served as U.S. attorney for Pennsylvania (1791–1800). He was a member of the Maryland Society against slavery (1792–1836), its president from 1818. He was a longtime trustee of the University of Pennsylvania and belonged to several other cultural and legal organizations. His View of the Constitution of the United States (1825) was a popular textbook and he also wrote on a variety of other subjects.