Roger Sherman
Roger Sherman was a Connecticut lawyer and judge despite having little formal education. His knowledge came from access to his father’s substantial library, and he eventually became adept enough in mathematics that he contributed calculations for astronomy tables to the almanacs popular in New England. By the time he was 24 he was serving as the government surveyor for New Haven County and was an influential citizen of New Milford. Eventually he fathered fifteen children with two wives, his first having died in 1760. Thirteen of his children survived to adulthood, ensuring a long line of descendants. One of his great, great, great grandsons was Archibald Cox, special prosecutor during the Watergate investigation.
Sherman represented Connecticut in the Continental Congress when it passed the Articles of Association, which established a boycott of British goods in 1774. He later signed the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution, the only of the founders whose signature is on all four above documents. His influence in the Revolutionary congresses was relatively small in comparison to his later work on the Constitution. Sherman attended the Constitutional Convention in the belief that it would amend the Articles of Confederation and initially opposed a new Constitution. Later he became instrumental in its shape.
It was Sherman who, along with Oliver Ellsworth, presented the compromise which established a bicameral legislature. Sherman had supported a unicameral legislature representing the states, and when it became evident that such a goal was unachievable he proposed an upper and lower house – Senate and House of Representatives – with Senators elected by state legislatures and Representatives by the people. In Sherman’s proposal, called the Great Compromise, each state would have two senators, thus the small state of Connecticut was represented there equally with the larger states.
It was also Sherman who broke the deadlock on the manner in which the population of the Southern states would be calculated when determining the number of representatives allotted. Sherman suggested that slaves be counted as three fifths of a freeman for the purposes of assessment for representation, and that was how the Constitution remained until after the Civil War. As for the executive branch of the government, Sherman believed that the Constitution granted it little power beyond ensuring that the laws enacted by the legislature were enforced.
Sherman strongly opposed the twelve amendments proposed by Madison, ten of which were passed as the Bill of Rights. He also strongly opposed the creation of paper money, believing only gold and silver coin should be produced by the government. Sherman believed that the Bill of Rights weakened the control of the states over the people, and especially over the general commerce of the states. Sherman held both a seat in the United States Senate and the Office of Mayor of New Haven at the time of his death in the summer of 1793. He is buried in New Haven.