Who is roger sherman?

Answer 1

Roger Sherman (April 19, 1721 (J.C), April 30, 1721 (G.C.) - July 23, 1793) was an early American lawyer and politician. He served as the first mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, and served on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and was also a representative and senator in the new republic.

He and Robert Morris were the only people to sign all four great state papers of the U.S.: the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. Thomas Jefferson said of him: "That is Mr. Sherman, of Connecticut, a man who never said a foolish thing in his life."

Sherman is also the patriarch of one of America's oldest, most powerful and prolific U.S. political families, the Baldwin, Hoar & Sherman family as ranked by Political Graveyard.

His family moved to Stoughton, Massachusetts, a town located seventeen miles (27 km) south of Boston. The part of Stoughton, Massachusetts where Sherman grew up was later incorporated in 1797 to Canton, Massachusetts. Sherman's education did not extend beyond his father's library and grammar school and his early career was spent as a shoe designer. However, he was gifted with an aptitude for learning, and access to a good library owned by his father, as well as a Harvard educated parish minister, Rev. Samuel Dunbar, who took him under his wing.

In 1743, after his father's death, he moved (on foot) with his mother and siblings to New Milford, Connecticut, where in partnership with his brother, he opened the town's first store. He very quickly introduced himself in civil and religious affairs, rapidly becoming one of the town's leading citizens and eventually town clerk of New Milford. Due to his mathematical skill he became county surveyor of New Haven County in 1745, and began providing astronomical calculations for almanacs in 1748.

Despite the fact that he had no formal legal training, Sherman was urged to read for the bar exam by a local lawyer and was admitted to the Bar of Litchfield, Connecticut in 1754, and chosen to represent New Milford in the Connecticut General Assembly from 1755 to 1758 and from 1760 to 1761. In 1766 he was elected to the Upper House of the Connecticut General Assembly, where he served until 1785.

He was appointed justice of the peace in 1762,, judge of the court of common pleas in 1765, and justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut from 1766 to 1789, when he left to become a member of the United States Congress. He was also appointed treasurer of Yale College, and awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree. He was a professor of religion for many years, and engaged in lengthy correspondences with some of the greatest theologians of the time.

In 1783 he and Richard Law were appointed to massively revise the confused and archaic Connecticut statutes, which they accomplished with great success. In 1784 he was elected Mayor of New Haven, which office he held until his death. He is especially notable for being the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States: the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Association, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution. Only one other person, Robert Morris, signed 3 of these documents (not the Articles of Association).

At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775 Sherman was appointed to the Connecticut Governor's Council of Safety and also commissary to the Connecticut Troops. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1774 and served very actively throughout the War, earning high esteem in the eyes of his fellow delegates and serving on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence.

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, summoned into existence to amend the Articles of Confederation, Sherman offered what came to be called the Great Compromise or Connecticut Compromise. In this plan, the people would be represented in the house by proportional representation in one branch of the legislature, called the House of Representatives (the Lower House). The states would be represented in another house called the Senate (the Upper House). In the lower house, each state had a representative for every 30,000 people. On the other hand, in the upper house each state was guaranteed two senators, no matter their size.

Sherman is also memorable for his stance against paper money and his authoring of Article I Section 10 of the United States Constitution.

Mr. Wilson & Mr. Sherman moved to insert after the words "coin money" the words "nor emit bills of credit, nor make any thing but gold & silver coin a tender in payment of debts" making these prohibitions absolute, instead of making the measures allowable (as in the XIII art:) with the consent of the Legislature of the U.S. ... Mr. Sherman thought this a favorable crisis for crushing paper money. If the consent of the Legislature could authorize emissions of it, the friends of paper money would make every exertion to get into the Legislature in order to license it."