45 Facts About Roger Sherman

Roger Sherman was an American statesman, lawyer, and a Founding Father of the United States.

Roger Sherman is the only person to sign four of the great state papers of the United States related to the founding: the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and US Constitution.

Roger Sherman signed the 1774 Petition to the King and 1775 Olive Branch Petition.

Roger Sherman represented Connecticut at the Continental Congress, and he was a member of the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Roger Sherman served as a delegate to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, which produced the United States Constitution.

Roger Sherman favored granting the federal government power to raise revenue and regulate commerce, but initially opposed efforts to supplant the Articles of Confederation with a new constitution.

Roger Sherman served in the United States Senate from 1791 to his death in 1793.

Roger Sherman was born into a family of farmers in Newton, Massachusetts.

In 1743, his father's death made Roger Sherman move with his mother and siblings to New Milford, Connecticut, where in partnership with his brother William, he opened the town's first store.

Roger Sherman became county surveyor of New Haven County in 1745 and began providing astronomical calculations for almanacs in 1759.

Roger Sherman married twice, and had fifteen children, of whom thirteen reached adulthood.

Roger Sherman was appointed justice of the peace in 1775 and judge of the court of common pleas in 1765.

Roger Sherman served as Justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut from 1766 to 1789.

Roger Sherman was appointed treasurer of Yale College, and awarded an honorary Master of Arts degree.

Roger Sherman was a professor of Christian religion for many years, and engaged in lengthy correspondences with some of the theologians of the time.

Roger Sherman was a member of the committee of 13 that was responsible for preparing a draft constitution for the new nation.

The committee of 13 rejected Roger Sherman's proposal, adopting a unicameral legislature and what would become the Articles of Confederation.

Roger Sherman came into the Convention without the intention of creating a new constitution.

Roger Sherman saw the convention as a means to modify the already existing government.

Roger Sherman defended amending the articles declaring that it was in the best interest of the people and the most probable way the people would accept changes to a constitution.

Roger Sherman's views were heavily shaped by Connecticut's position as a particularly isolationist state.

Roger Sherman's views were influenced by his personal beliefs and Puritan views.

Roger Sherman opposed slavery and used the issue as a tool for negotiation and alliance.

Roger Sherman believed that slavery was already gradually being abolished and the trend was moving southward.

Roger Sherman saw that the issue of slavery could be one that threatened the success of the Constitutional Convention.

Therefore, Roger Sherman helped shape compromises that benefited the slave states in order to obtain unlikely allies from the Carolinas due to the economies of their home states.

Roger Sherman is known for his stance against paper money with his authoring of Article I, Section 10 of the United States Constitution and his later opposition to James Madison over the Bill of Rights.

Roger Sherman believed that these amendments would diminish the role and power of the states over the people.

Mr Roger Sherman thought this a favorable crisis for crushing paper money.

Roger Sherman had very little interest in creating an executive branch with much authority.

Roger Sherman suggested that no constitutional provision needed be made for the executive because it was "nothing more than an institution for carrying the will of the Legislature into effect".

Roger Sherman defended the unicameral legislature of the Articles of Confederation by stating that the more populous states had not "suffered at the hands of less populous states on account of the rule of equal voting".

At important moments in the deliberations, Roger Sherman consistently pushed the interests of the less populous states.

When delegates were unable to reconcile the differences between his plan and Madison's Virginia Plan, Roger Sherman helped to get the issue of representation in Congress delegated to a Grand Committee of which he was not only a member but whose membership was sympathetic to the views of the less populous states.

In terms of modes of election, Roger Sherman supported allowing each state legislature to elect its own senators.

Roger Sherman was elected as a United States Representative in the First Congress, and then to the Senate in the Second and Third Congress until his death in 1793.

Roger Sherman opposed appointment of fellow signer Gouverneur Morris as minister to France because he considered that high-living Patriot to be of an "irreligious nature".

Roger Sherman's physician supposed his disorder to be seated in his liver.

Roger Sherman praised his contributions to his friends, family, town, and country, noting Sherman's piety and excellence in study.

Roger Sherman is especially notable in United States history for being the only person to sign all four great state papers of the United States, the Articles of Association, the United States Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution.

Roger Sherman was involved with the Declaration of Independence but abstained, hoping for a reconciliation with Britain.

Roger Sherman is one of the most influential members of the Constitutional Convention.

Roger Sherman is not well known for his actions at the Convention because he was a "terse, ineloquent speaker" who never kept a personal record of his experience, unlike other prominent figures.

At 66 years of age, Roger Sherman was the second eldest member at the convention following Benjamin Franklin.

Roger Sherman was one of the most active members of the Convention, making motions or seconds 160 times.