Abstract: Thomas Wilson Dorr was Rhode Island’s foremost political reformer of the nineteenth century. Educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard University, he studied law under James Kent, Chancellor of New York. After several years practicing law in New York, he returned to Rhode Island in 1833 and soon was elected as a representative to the state’s General Assembly. Initially elected as a Whig, he took on the conservative wing of that party in the House of Representatives. While he would go on to enact reform measures in a number of areas, including banking, education, and prison reform, he is best known for his efforts to advance suffrage reform measures that resulted in a rebellion in 1842 that bears his name. During his first term in the General Assembly, he led the opposition to an attempt by arch conservatives Benjamin Hazard and Richard K. Randolph to invoke a Gag Rule in Rhode Island, similar to the one that roiled the country during the 1830s.