Tapping the Scales of Justice - A Dose of Connecticut Legal History
Roger Sherman and the Connecticut Compromise
In Article VI of the Constitution of the United States, the framers
declared, "This Constitution... to be the supreme Law of the Land."
Constitutional authority, Laurence Tribe, notes in his book, American
Constitutional Law, that "the Constitution is an endlessly intriguing object
of study, and represents the best effort of its kind in the history of the
world." Among the men who created the Constitution in Philadelphia during
the summer of 1787, Roger Sherman, a Superior Court Judge, is remembered as
the architect of the Connecticut Compromise.
When the Constitutional
Convention became deadlocked over the matter of legislative voting, Sherman
proposed a system similar to one he had advocated previously as a delegate
to the Continental Congress in 1776. The compromise provided for
representation in the House of Representatives according to population and
in the Senate by equal numbers for each state. Sherman's compromise was
adopted on July 16, 1787 by a vote of five states to four, and served not
only to save the crumbling convention, but provided stimulus to resolve
other issues yet to be decided.
Following ratification of the
Constitution, Sherman served first in the House of Representatives and then
in the Senate. He died while still a Senator in 1793, and is buried in the
Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut.
Sherman was the only
person to sign all four documents of the American Revolution: the
Continental Association of 1774, the Declaration of Independence, the
Articles of Confederation and the Constitution of the United States.
For additional reading on the topic see: 61 Conn. Bar Journal 182.