John Dickinson was called "The Penman of the American Revolution." During the 1760s and 1770s, he authored numerous important essays in defense of American rights, including The Late Regulations Respecting the British Colonies, the resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress, the Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, the "Petition to the King," and the Declaration of the Causes of Taking Up Arms. His Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania had a circulation greater than any Revolutionary pamphlet with the exception of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. He wrote the lyrics to the first American patriotic song, "The Liberty Song." Dickinson also drafted the Articles of Confederation, the country's first frame of government. Some say that he came up with the name, "United States of America," the words that open that document. His reputation as a writer was almost unparalleled among his contemporaries.