roger sherman (1721–1793)€¦ · background qualified him to handle purchasing and distribution...

The Constitution should lay as few temptations as is possible in the way of those in power.

—Roger Sherman, 1787

Philadelphia was hot and still as darkness descended on the evening ofJune 22, 1787. The city was the site of the Constitutional Convention,which had begun a month earlier. Its purpose was to fashion a newsystem of government for the young American republic. Inside therented quarters of a small house near Convention Hall, Roger Sherman,the tall, stern, plainly dressed delegate from Connecticut, was havingdinner with a delegate from South Carolina. Sherman was engaged inone of his favorite activities: hard-nosed political bargaining. He washoping to obtain the South Carolina delegate’s support for Connecticut’sclaim to western lands in return for supporting protection of the slavetrade and a prohibition against the taxing of exported goods. Sixty-sixyears of age and a devout Calvinist, “Father Sherman,” as many of thedelegates called him, had a well-deserved reputation for honesty. The delegatefrom South Carolina had no doubt that Sherman would live up to any bargainthe two men struck. And he also knew that he could trust the elder statesman to keeptheir dinner meeting a secret.

BackgroundRoger Sherman was born in 1721 in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of a farmer. When hewas two years old, his family moved to Stoughton. There Sherman attended the commonschool and learned the practice of shoemaking from his father. He spent his spare timestudying theology, mathematics, history, and law. In 1743, two years after his father’sdeath, Sherman and his family joined his older brother in New Milford, Connecticut.

In New Milford, Sherman opened a shoemaker—or “cobbler”—shop and earned aposition as the county surveyor in 1745. The income from this office enabled him to buyland and to earn a favorable reputation throughout the county. Sherman published aseries of almanacs between 1750 and 1761. He also studied law on his own, passing thebar in 1754.

During the next few years, Sherman served in the General Assembly, as a justice ofthe peace, and as a justice of the county court. In 1761, he gave up practicing law andmoved to New Haven, Connecticut. There he opened a large general store and laterserved as treasurer of Yale College.

During the 1760s, Sherman became a leader of American resistance to British tyranny.Ever moderate and practical, however, he initially favored peaceful forms of protest, suchas boycotts and petitions. In order to devote more time to public affairs, he retired frombusiness in 1772. Two years later, Connecticut sent him as a representative to the FirstContinental Congress.

Continental Congress and the Declaration of IndependenceWhile in Philadelphia, Sherman established himself as a peer among the most respectedand well-educated men of the colonies. He voiced his opinions with clarity, if withouteloquence. The Continental Congress passed the Articles of Association, which established a

Roger Sherman

ROGER SHERMAN (1721–1793)

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nonimportation and nonexportation policy in the colonies. The colonies vowed to boycottgoods coming from Great Britain and to refrain from delivering goods to the mother country.

In 1775, Sherman returned for the Second Continental Congress, where he servedon various committees dealing with foreign trade and military supply and planning.That same year, fighting broke out between colonial and British forces, and so the issueof formally creating an independent nation soon arose. When the time came to pick acommittee to draft a declaration of independence, Sherman was chosen along with JohnAdams, Robert Livingston, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. They were knownas the Committee of Five.

The committee outlined the declaration and chose Jefferson to write the actualdocument. Jefferson presented his draft to Sherman and the other members of thecommittee, who made revisions. In June 1776, the committee agreed upon a final draft,which was presented to Congress. Once the delegates approved the document, RogerSherman signed his name to the Declaration of Independence.

Sherman kept busy in committees throughout the Second Continental Congress.The military committees were soon organized into the Board of War. Sherman’s businessbackground qualified him to handle purchasing and distribution of supplies. He alsodealt with military correspondence and served on committees that handled economicissues and Indian affairs.

Articles of ConfederationIn June 1776, Congress appointed Sherman to the committee that drafted a plan ofunion for the colonies. The Articles of Confederation were approved by Congress thenext year. But concerns about representation and taxation delayed ratification of thedocument by the states until 1781.

While debate about the Articles of Confederation continued in the states, Shermanmaintained his devotion to public service and Connecticut politics. He served in thestate senate, on the Council of Safety, and as judge of the superior court. In 1783, hereturned to Congress to approve the Treaty of Paris. The next year he was elected the firstmayor of New Haven.

Constitution of the United StatesIn 1787, at the age of sixty-six, Sherman was chosen as one of Connecticut’s delegates toa convention whose purpose was to revise the Articles of Confederation. Soon after theconvention began in Philadelphia, it became clear that most of the delegates wanted tocreate an entirely new government.

Sherman consented to the writing of a new constitution, but he was afraid of makingthe central government too strong. During the convention, therefore, he worked to guardthe power of the states against the national government. He believed that the authorityof the national government should be carefully restricted to a few areas. “All othermatters civil & criminal,” Sherman proclaimed on June 6, 1787, “would be much betterin the hands of the States.”

In order to protect the people’s liberty, Sherman also argued for placing the balanceof the national government’s power in the legislature. He asserted that the executive was“nothing more than an institution for carrying the will of the Legislature into effect.”To this end, Sherman proposed that the president be chosen by Congress and serve atits pleasure.

Founders and the Constitution: In Their Own Words—Volume 1

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Sherman spoke at least one hundred thirty-eight times during the convention on avariety of subjects. He consistently argued for the careful limiting of government power.He also proposed the Great Compromise, which decided the method of representationin the Congress. By this agreement, the Congress would be divided into two houses. Inthe Senate, each state would have an equal vote. In the House of Representatives, eachstate would be represented according to its population. The Great Compromise settledthe most difficult issue dividing the large and small states.

Sherman opposed listing the people’s rights in the Constitution. He feared that sucha bill of rights would give the federal government the authority to intervene in stateaffairs. Also, any such list would surely omit certain rights held by the people. This couldbe used by tyrants to take away the people’s rights.

Ratification and the First CongressSherman was not entirely happy with the final version of the Constitution. But hesupported ratification of the document. He played an important role in Connecticut’sdecision to approve the Constitution.

In 1789, Sherman took a seat in the new House of Representatives. In the firstCongress, he supported James Madison’s effort to add a bill of rights to the Constitution.Ever flexible, Sherman had changed his mind on this issue. He came to favor a bill of rightsbecause the people of Connecticut supported one. In 1791, the seventy-year-old Shermanwas appointed to the United States Senate, where he served until his death in July 1793.

Roger Sherman

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Reading Comprehension Questions

1. Which important founding documents did Roger Sherman help to create?

2. What was Sherman’s attitude toward the power of the national government atthe Constitutional Convention?

3. What important dispute between the large and small states at the ConstitutionalConvention did Sherman help to resolve?

Critical Thinking Questions

4. Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale College, described Roger Sherman as “anextraordinary man.” Why do you think Sherman deserved such high praise?

5. Historian Forrest McDonald writes that Sherman “combined incorruptiblemoral rectitude with wily political talent.” Do you think it is possible for aperson to have both good morals and good political skills? Why or why not?


From a speech by Roger Sherman, June 6, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention

Answer the following questions. Note that some of these answers must be inferred.

a. When was this document written?

b. Where was this document written?

c. Who wrote this document?

d. What type of document is this?

e. What was the purpose of this document?

f. Who was the audience for this document?


CONTEXT QUESTIONS

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Note: Before reading the following excerpt, please note that it is taken from Madison’sNotes of Debates in the Federal Convention, with a few changes. The dialogue is nowconveyed in the present tense, and from the first person point of view (“I” rather than“he”). Also, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, formatting, and abbreviations have beenchanged for the sake of clarity.

From a speech by Roger Sherman, June 6, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention

The objects of the Union are few:1. defense against foreign danger.2. [defense] against internal disputes and a resort to force.3. treaties with foreign nations.4. regulating foreign commerce, and drawing revenue from it.

These and perhaps a few lesser objects alone render a Confederation of the Statesnecessary. All other matters civil and criminal would be much better in the hands of theStates. . . . I am for giving the General Government power to legislate and execute [thelaws] within a defined province.

Source: “The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 Reported by James Madison: June 6.” The AvalonProject at Yale Law School. .

Roger Sherman

IN HIS OWN WORDS: ROGER SHERMAN ON THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT

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Discussion Questions

1. In 1787, what did Sherman say about the roles of the federal andstate governments?

2. Today, what would Sherman say about the roles of government listed onthe board?

3. Why do you think the role of government has expanded since 1787?



By the time the delegates to the ConstitutionalConvention had gathered in Philadelphia in 1787,the American people had been accustomed formore than one hundred and fifty years to havingmost of their affairs managed first within thecolonies and then in independent states. It was notsurprising that the Articles of Confederation, theinitial constitutional system for“The United States of America,”affirmed in its first article thegeneral “sovereignty, freedomand independence” of the states.Beyond historical precedence,the commitment to statesovereignty drew support fromsixteenth- and seventeenth-century theorists such as JeanJacques Rousseau who arguedthat the habits and virtuesneeded by a self-governingpeople can be cultivated only insmall republics. In short, historyand theory seemed to be on theside of a confederation of smallAmerican republics or states.

If the American people were inclined to favorstate sovereignty, they also were interested incomfortable preservation—that is, in the enjoymentof both “safety and happiness,” to borrow from theDeclaration of Independence. By the mid-1780s, itwas clear to many Americans that state sovereigntycreated obstacles to comfortable preservation, notthe least being the impediments to a smooth-functioning commercial system. Concerns aboutthe effects on the country of competing fiscal andcommercial policies in the different states led tothe Annapolis Convention of 1786. While thedelegates to this convention did not come up witha specific plan for fixing the commercial system,they petitioned the confederation congress toarrange for a constitutional convention that wouldreconsider the Articles of Confederation with theaim of improving interstate commerce.

James Madison, one of seven delegates chosento represent Virginia at the ConstitutionalConvention of 1787, prepared a document on thehistory of confederacies during the monthspreceding the meeting. Events such as Shays’sRebellion in Massachusetts and disputes over the

commercial use of the Potomac River, along withhis study of history, convinced him that a systembased on state sovereignty was destined to fail.Madison worked with other members of theVirginia delegation on a plan for a basicallynational, rather than confederal, system ofgovernment. In addition to provisions for separate

legislative, executive, and judicialbranches, the “Virginia Plan”would have empoweredCongress “to negative all lawspassed by the several States,contravening in the opinion ofthe National Legislature thearticles of Union; and to callforth the force of the Unionagainst any member of theUnion failing to fulfill its dutyunder the articles thereof.” TheVirginia Plan proposed anational government that wouldbe legally and functionallysupreme over the states.

According to Madison, onlya national system would be capable of protectingthe fundamental interests and rights of theAmerican people. Other delegates at theconvention disagreed. Roger Sherman ofConnecticut, for example, argued that “the objectsof Union . . . were few” and that “the people aremore happy [sic] in small than in large States.”Sherman was not alone in preferring aconfederation of small republics to a national orunitary political system. Madison understood thathe had to expose the weaknesses of the confederalmodel to save the Virginia Plan. Sherman helpedhim out on June 6 by conceding that some stateswere too small and, hence, subject to factiousviolence. Madison seized upon this argument. Heresponded that “faction & oppression” had“prevailed in the largest as well as the smallest”states, although less in the former than the latter.

The teaching for Madison was clear: largerepublics are more likely to provide “security forprivate rights, and the steady dispensation ofJustice,” than small republics. This argument hithome with the delegates. Madison convinced themthat what they wanted most from government, thatis, protection for rights or republican liberty, could

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best be achieved in a national system. Smallrepublics, he argued, were actually bad forrepublican liberty, being hotbeds of factiousdivision and violence. He summed up his positionbluntly: “The only remedy is to enlarge the sphere,& thereby divide the community into so great anumber of interests & parties, that in the 1st. placea majority will not be likely at the same moment tohave a common interest separate from that of thewhole or of the minority; and in the 2d. place, thatin case they shd. have such an interest, they maynot be apt to unite in the pursuit of it.” Here wasthe outline of the famousdefense of the large republicthat appears in Madison’sFederalist Paper No. 10.

In the end, the delegatesat the ConstitutionalConvention settled on a planthat combined national andconfederal elements. Toquote Federalist Paper No. 39: the proposed system“in strictness” was “neither national nor a federalConstitution, but a composition of both.”Madison’s June 6 speech, however, insured that thenew “compound” republic would have a nationalas opposed to a confederal tilt. This innovativegovernmental model, what came to be called the“federal” model, represented one of America’sgreat contributions to the science of politicsaccording to Madison. The model’s nationalelements were evident not only in the creation ofseparate executive and judicial departments as wellas proportional representation in the House ofRepresentatives, but in the supremacy clause thataffirmed that the Constitution as well as nationallaws enacted under its authority would constitutethe supreme law of the land. The confederalelements appeared in the provision for equal staterepresentation in the United States Senate (afeature especially desired by the small states) andstate participation in the ratification ofamendments. The addition of the 10thAmendment in 1791 provided added protectionfor state interests (“The powers not delegated tothe United States by the Constitution, norprohibited by it to the States, are reserved to theStates respectively, or to the people”).

The defenders of the confederal modelcontinued their attacks on the new system duringthe ratification debates that followed theconvention. Patrick Henry of Virginia, forexample, accused the delegates to the FederalConvention of violating their authorization by

proposing to establish a “consolidated” governmentbased on the consent of the people, rather than thestates. For Henry, the new constitutional systemwould endanger the rights and privileges of thepeople along with the “sovereignty” of the states.Richard Henry Lee, one of the Anti-Federalists,shared Henry’s fear that a large republic would notbe hospitable to liberty and natural rights. Likemany other opponents of the Constitution, Leealso argued that republican liberty can bepreserved only by a virtuous citizenry and thatonly small republics are capable of nurturing civic

and moral virtues.The fact that the

document that issued fromthe Federal Convention didnot include a bill of rightsseemed to lend support tothe charge by Patrick Henryand others that theproposed governmental

system would promote neither the happiness northe liberty of the people. In fact, several delegatesto the convention, including George Mason ofVirginia and Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts,were sufficiently troubled by the absence of a billof rights that they departed without adding theirsignatures to the document. Gerry also worriedthat the new government would not adequatelyrepresent the people and that its powers were notwell defined. When it was clear that the opponentsof the plan would not accept the argument that theframework set out by the delegates provided for alimited government of enumerated powers thatwould be incapable of emasculating natural rightsand liberties, an agreement was reached during theratification period to add amendments that wouldguarantee, among other things, freedom of speechand religion, trial by one’s peers, and protectionagainst unreasonable searches and seizures.

The federal system or compound republiccrafted by the Framers was an ingenious responseto the demand for both effective or competentgovernment on the one side, and rights-sensitivegovernment on the other. The decision to dividepower among (federalism) and within (checks andbalances) several governments positioned theAmerican people to enjoy the benefits of a largerepublic (e.g., strong defense against foreignencroachments, national system of commerce,etc.) while still retaining significant control overtheir day-to-day affairs within the states. Thestates, and not the national government, wereentrusted with the “police powers,” that is, the

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Madison convinced them that whatthey wanted most from government,

that is, protection for rights orrepublican liberty, could best beachieved in a national system.


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authority to protect the health, morals, safety andwelfare of the people. It is worth noting thatMadison was quite content to entrust the policepowers to the states—he never desired that theUnited States have a unitary system of government.

Ratification of the Constitution in 1791 hardlyput an end to the debate between the advocates ofstate sovereignty or small republicanism and theproponents of national sovereignty and the largerepublic. The concerns of James Madison andPatrick Henry, for example, are never far from thesurface of contemporary debates about the powerof the federal government to impose regulationson the states under the Constitution’s commerce

clause or the Fourteenth Amendment. There isconsiderable evidence, however, that the tensionbetween these positions not only adds vitality tothe constitutional system, but has been criticallyimportant to the advancement of both nationalsecurity and equality in the enjoyment offundamental rights. The federal arrangement thatwas crafted by the delegates at the FederalConvention of 1787 has long been recognizedas one of the principal models of a moderndemocratic system of government.

David E. Marion, Ph.D.Hampden-Sydney College

Suggestions for Further ReadingDiamond, Martin. The Founding of the Democratic Republic. Itasca, IL: F.E. Peacock, 1981.Frohnen, Bruce (ed.). The American Republic: Primary Sources. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2002.Kurland, Philip B. and Ralph Lerner (eds.). The Founders’ Constitution. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987.McDonald, Forrest. E Pluribus Unum. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1979.Storing, Herbert J. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1981.


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