Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

ral provision for their welfare. So far from his narrow education producing a proportionate narrowness of mind, he outstripped his opportunities, and gave his brothers a liberal education, that they might enjoy benefits of which he felt that he stood in need. At the age of twenty-two, the family removed to New Milford, in Connecticut, where his elder brother had preceded him. There the two opened a store together, and the trade of shoemaker was abandoned. He was not loath, in after life, to recall his first occupation. Once when he was placed on a committee of Congress to examine some army accounts, he surprised his companions by his accurate tests of a bill for shoes, when he frankly accounted for his proficiency by mentioning his old calling.

It is recorded as proof of his studies and acquisitions, that two years after he came to Connecticut, he was appointed a surveyor of land for Litchfield County, in which he resided, a duty to which few shoemakers render themselves equal.1 The law, however, was the profession for which he was destined. The story is told of an incident in his early life, while he was yet a shoemaker, which served to fix his taste and encourage his fondness for legal study. One of his neighbors had a difficulty on hand requiring the interposition of a lawyer, and intrusted

Astronomical calculations, says his biographer, of so early a date as the year 1748, have been discovered

among his papers, made by him for an almanac then published in New York; so that it would seem he had some

thing in his composition of his ancestor, the excellent

John Sherman, of whom we have spoken, whom Dr.

Mather pronounced "one of the greatest mathematicians

that ever lived in this hemisphere of the world."

the statement of the case to young Sherman, who was about visiting the place where the practitioner resided. To present the matter clearly, Sherman committed the points to paper, and consulted his notes when he came to explain the affair to the lawyer. "Give me the paper," said he, "it will assist me in my petition to the court." The young apprentice blushed at the request, and delivered the manuscript. It was pronounced an able petition as it stood, and the writer being ques tioned as to his pursuits, was advised, so runs the story, to turn his attention to the law.

Some eminent authority in England has pronounced it an essential prerequisite of success at the bar, that the candidate for favor should, among other pressures of fortune, have lost his property, be married, and have a wife and children on his hands for support. The strong mental impulses of Sherman hardly required this stimulus; but it is certainly true that he had his way to make in the world, and that he had a wife and increasing family about him. He married, at the age of twenty-eight, Miss Elizabeth Hartwell, of Stoughton. Five years afterwards, having qualified himself entirely by his private studies, he was admitted an attorney at law. The following year he was made a Justice of the Peace at New Milford, and sent by the people of the place as a representative to the Colonial Assembly. In 1759, he was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas for the county. Removing to New Haven in 1761, he was appointed to the same offices in his new county, at first justice.

and town representative, and, in 1765, pressed upon Connecticut, were doubt Judge of the Common Pleas.

less well and maturely considered by Sherman, whose logical mind powerfully seconded his sympathies, as a man of the people, in the constitutional struggle attendant upon the movements in Parliament.

[ocr errors]

The following year, he was appointed an assistant, or member of the council, to the upper house in the Legislature, and the same year was appointed Judge of the Superior Court. He enjoyed the two offices for nineteen years, when a The opening of the contest found law was passed rendering one person him well prepared for the issue. He incapable of holding both, upon which was chosen a delegate to the first Conhe resigned the former, and continued tinental Congress of 1774. John Adams, judge of the court till 1789, a period passing through New Haven on his of twenty-three years. When he finally way to that body in August, was waited resigned the station, it was to take his upon by Sherman, and in his Diary reseat in the first Congress under the ports a brief conversation with him. Constitution. The duties which he "He is between fifty and sixty, a solid, thus discharged were both of a political sensible man. He said he read Mr. and judicial character. As representa- Otis' Rights,' etc., in 1764, and tive in the Assembly during the whole thought that he had conceded away the period of the French War, be became rights of America. He thought the intimately acquainted with the exer- reverse of the Declaratory Act was true, tions and strength of the colony put namely, that the Parliament of Great forth in the national defence. Who- Britain had authority to make laws for ever, it has been often remarked, would America in no case whatever "—opinstudy the Revolution in its elements, ions quite up to the Massachusetts must turn his attention to the previous standard. Adams afterwards records period. The people of the colonies not Sherman as a staunch supporter of inonly learnt their power, and gained dependence in Congress. His talents military experience in the field, but the were appreciated in that body, for we seeds were sown both of aggression on find him a member of important comthe part of the mother country and re-mittees, particularly those appointed sistance on the part of her children. to prepare a plan of confederation and The war with France, terminated by the peace of Versailles in 1763, had brought not only an enormous expenditure to England, but imposed extraordinary privations and losses upon the colonists. If Great Britain found reason to tax her American possessions, they had equal reason for consideration and relief. As member of the council, these questions, which were especially

the Declaration of Independence. He was also employed as a member of the Board of War and Ordnance, of the Marine Committee, and of the Board of Treasury-thus completing a round of the most responsible duties intrusted to the new government. In a brief letter of reminiscences, dated 1822, Jefferson recalled his impressions of Sherman in these early Congressional

scenes.

"I served with him," he writes, soundest and strongest pillars of the Revolution."

"in the Old Congress in the years 1775 and 1776. He was a very able and logical debater in that body, steady in the principles of the Revolution, al.ways at the post of duty, much employed in the business of committees, and, particularly, was of the committee of Dr. Franklin, Mr. J. Adams, Mr. Livingston, and myself, for preparing the Declaration of Independence. Being much my senior in years, our intercourse was chiefly in the line of our duties. I had a very great respect for him." About the same time, John Adams, on a similar application for biographical aid, expressed his testimony in characteristic terms. "The honorable Roger Sherman was one of the most cordial friends which I ever had in my life. Destitute of all literary and scientific education, but such as he acquired by his own exertions, he was one of the most sensible men in the world. The clearest head and the steadiest heart. It is praise enough to say, that the late Chief Justice Ellsworth told me that he had made Mr. Sherman his model in his youth. Indeed, I never knew two men more alike, except that the Chief Justice had the advantage of a liberal education and somewhat more extensive reading. Mr. Sherman was born in the State of Massachusetts, and was one of the

43

These impressions were confirmed by a long course of public service in Congress, under the old Confederation and the new. Sherman was always retained in public life, discharging many official duties in his State as well as at Philadelphia, and the other assemblies of Congress. He was Mayor of New Haven from 1784 to his death. He was engaged with his fellow judge, Richard Law, in revising the statutes of Connecticut, and was a prominent member of the Convention of 1787, which framed the Constitution of the United States, to which he gave equally important support in his State conven tion for its ratification. He not only greatly strengthened the cause in debate, but he published a series of arti cles in its favor.

He was now, at the adoption of the Constitution, approaching threescore, with unabated activity and public use. fulness. Elected to Congress, he resigned the judicial station which he had held for some years by the side of Ellsworth, and interested himself, as usual, in the important debates of the new government. In 1791, he was elected a United States senator, but did not live to complete his term of office. He died at New Haven, July 23, 1793, at the age of seventy-two.

FRANCIS HOPKINSON.

commended for imitation, out of the very abundance and directness of his thoughts. Whence came the invention of Freneau but from the everyday af fairs of the people which he shaped into verse? or the arguments of Dickinson, or the vivid words of Jefferson? What inspired Trumbull to emulate the verses of the author of "Hudibras ?" Clever political essayists sprang up in the press throughout the country. No one of them all did his spiriting of the pen more gently, or left a record better rewarding the care of posterity than the gentleman of whom we are about to give some account, Francis Hopkinson.

NOTHING is more noticeable, in trac- | words followed. See Franklin abso ing the biographical history of the lutely creating a style, universally reRevolution, than the diversity of talents and character brought to bear upon the single patriotic work; rude mountain foresters, and lowland farmers by the side of lawyers and statesmen; clergymen preaching from their pulpits, and shouldering muskets; judges descending from the royal colonial bench, to enlighten the people under a new dispensation; churchmen and puritans; men of Massachusetts and men of the Old Dominion side by side; the most varied gifts and accomplishments; major generals who could hardly pen a decent letter, and acute logicians of the bar, whose nicety of phrase and strength of reasoning awakened the reluctant admiration of Parliament; polished wits even, who graced the rough conflict with the charms and refinements of literary cultivation. The literature, indeed, of the Revolution is remarkable as its military adventures. things considered, it is a work of singular originality. It dealt with new ideas, and had little assistance from previous modes of expression. The secret is, that there was something in the mind of the writer, and something of real interest before him-in life-to convey; and the thing being provided, the

All

He was born in Philadelphia, in September, 1737. His father, Thomas Hopkinson, a Londoner by birth, a most ingenious man, was educated at Oxford, and came early in life to Philadelphia, bringing with him his newly married wife, a niece of the Bishop of Worcester. He held an office in the judiciary under the British crown in the colony. His learning and intelligence naturally attracted the allegiance of Benjamin Franklin, but three years his senior, and the rising sage had special ground of admiration for him in

[graphic]

Tra: Hopkinson

From the cranul painting by Chapel in the pose the pubh her.

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors]
« PředchozíPokračovat »