Signing Their Rights Away Read Online Free PDF Page B

brink of ruin; we must turn back and adopt a new system.” He admitted that the document was far from perfect, but he added, at last, “If we reject a plan of government, which with such favorable circumstances is offered for acceptance, I fear our national existence must come to a final end.”
    It was rare for this cautious old lawyer to utter such a strong opinion, and perhaps legislators in Connecticut knew that Johnson meant business. Regardless, his state became the fifth to ratify the Constitution, and afterward Johnson served as one of Connecticut’s first two senators. He was, at age sixty-one, the oldest man inCongress. He stayed only a few years and then resigned to throw himself into his lifelong passion, nurturing the small college in New York that would one day become Columbia University.
    It was a long, lustrous life, and he even remarried at age seventy-four, a few years after the death of his first wife. When he finally died, in 1819, Johnson was ninety-two years old, the oldest of any signer of the Constitution.

The Signer Who Knew How to Compromise
    BORN : April 30, 1721
    DIED : July 23, 1793
    AGE AT SIGNING : 66
    PROFESSION : Cobbler, Lawyer
    BURIED : Grove Street Cemetery, New Haven, Connecticut

    Hardworking, experienced, and a fashioner of fine footwear, Roger Sherman was a man who knew how to compromise—a skill that not only saved the Constitutional Convention but also gave the United States one of the key elements of its government, then and now.
    Sherman is the only founder to sign the four most important documents in the early history of the United States: the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. But he was no pampered planter’s son sent off to England to study law and buy fancy wigs. No, Sherman was the son of a working farmer and cobbler—one of a handful of signers, including Hamilton and Franklin, who hailed from humble beginnings. He spent most of his youth in what is now Stoughton, Massachusetts. Money was scarce, but the house had plenty of books, and Sherman was a voracious reader. One popular tale—the truth ofwhich pales in comparison to its charm—says that Sherman slaved away making shoes with a book propped open on his work bench.
    After his father’s death, Sherman headed to New Milford to join one of his brothers, and legend has it that he traveled the more than 150 miles by foot while toting all the tools of his trade. (One can only assume he was wearing comfortable shoes!) Upon arriving in Connecticut, Sherman found work surveying property boundaries. He also opened a store with his brother and found time to publish his very own almanac. In 1749, his childhood sweetheart, Elizabeth Hartwell, moved to Connecticut to marry him.
    When one of his neighbors needed help with a legal dispute, Sherman lent a hand, and a local lawyer encouraged him to enter the profession. So the shoemaker passed the bar, and yet another skill was added to his growing resume. Over the years, Sherman worked as a town selectman, justice of the peace, county judge, and state senator. He held some form of public office his entire adult life and was often dependent upon the jobs for his income.
    In 1760, Elizabeth died, leaving Sherman with seven children to look after. He moved to Chapel Street in New Haven and opened a bookstore near Yale, an institution he would serve in various roles over the years (the university would later grant him an honorary degree). He also remarried, to Rebecca Prescott, and added another eight children to the Sherman clan.
    A moderate patriot who favored nonviolence, Sherman attended both the first and second Continental Congresses, from 1774 to 1781, as well as the Congress of the Confederation, from 1783 to 1784—all while making time to serve as a judge back home. He even held the post of mayor in New Haven. In Congress, Sherman was well respected from the get-go, garnering praise from even the