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| Roger Sherman |
Roger Sherman, students of American History will know, was a Connecticut patriot, the only Founding Father of the United States to have signed all four major U.S. founding documents.
Sherman served in the Connecticut House of Representatives.
He was a justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut and a treasurer of Yale
College. An early supporter of American independence, he represented
Connecticut in the Continental Congress, where he signed the Declaration of
Independence and helped draft the Articles of Confederation.
Sherman is best known, even among journalists who have not
cracked a book on the American founding since their college years, as the
author of “The Connecticut Compromise.” The Constitutional Convention was
hopelessly deadlocked on a question that had bedeviled patriots since the Roman
Republic had been crushed first by Caesar and later by barbarian hoards from
the north: In a true Republic, who should decide what should be done? It is this
question that the U.S. Constitution answers.
In a federated system of government, the founders well knew,
the Republican vision cannot be met by allowing large states to dominate
smaller states. The principle of representation must be widely distributed
without favor or fear throughout the body politic.
Sherman’s compromise divided the national legislature, the present
U.S. Congress, into two bodies, a House and a Senate; the House membership
would be chosen proportionally by popular vote, and the Senate membership – two
Senators for each state -- would be chosen by state legislators, later by
popular vote. The compromise balanced representation in such a way that large population
centers could not deny representation to smaller population centers, either
states or municipalizes within the states. And it was only after the Convention
had adopted Sherman’s compromise that the members of the Convention could
proceed to build a truly representative republic, so important was the
settlement of the issue facing the delegates to the national Constitutional
Convention.
The Democratic Socialists of America’s mission statement has
for some time been shouted from every rooftop in the nation. The newly elected
Mayor of New York City (and Wall Street), Zohran Mamdani, is a card carrying
member of the DSA. The group is not hiding in the bushes. It is boastfully
socialist.
Here are a few notable propositions drawn from its 2026-2027
manifesto:
“DSA’S MISSION IS TO UNITE WORKERS INTO A POWERFUL POLITICAL
MOVEMENT TO WIN THE BATTLE FOR DEMOCRACY AND CHANGE THE WORLD (capitalization
original). Our goal is to put workers in charge of the government through a new
democratic constitution that establishes civil, political, and
democratic rights for all, based on proportional representation in a
single federal legislature, and ends the role
of money in politics, with a
government by for and of the working class and with powerful labor unions and
social movements. Organizing in every city and town, we hope to build a
socialist society where people come before profit, basic needs are guaranteed,
the largest corporations are put under public ownership and democratic control,
peace around the world is secured, and
workers around the world join
together in common struggle to construct socialism worldwide. This year defeating the far right,
protecting the rights of the working class from the U.S. to Palestine, and fighting
for democracy are our top priorities. Through our grassroots struggles, we will
build a. movement with the power to take on the capitalist class and build an equal
democratic and liberated world.”
Virtually the whole DSA manifesto has been cobbled together from
unattributed socialist/communist sources here presented as a series of orthodox
propositions; heterodoxy, or indeed the slightest deviation from Saints Marx
and Stalin, will not be permitted. Karl
Marx’s Communist Manifesto rooted firmly in a central perception – “from each
according to his ability, to each according to his needs” — breathes lustily
from every paragraph. The DSA, this writer has pointed out elsewhere, is an organization whose
members are loosely bound by a pre-Marxian anarchist imperative. Before utopia
enters, armed to the teeth, through the front door, any rational political or
cultural order must be shown the back door. A barren desert is the perfect
picture of anarchic ambition.
Politicians in Connecticut should warmly embrace Sherman’s
Compromise for four reasons: 1) Sherman is a state constitutional hero, and
states should embrace such men; 2) his Compromise extended the political
franchise broadly throughout the nation and within states; 3) he should be
regarded justly as the “father” of the US. Congress; 4) it is therefore
inconceivable that in Connecticut any member of the state’s U.S. congressional
Delegation – all of them are Democrats who have professed an abiding affection
for democracy – should accede to a DSA mandate that would require the abolition
of the U.S. Senate and all State Senators.
Whyhaven’t some curious in-state journalists asked the
state’s two Democrat U.S. Senators, Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, which
side of this political barricade are they willing to die on: 1) the continuance
of senatorial representation or 2) its abolition at the demand of DSA “reformers”?
For U.S. Senators Blumenthal and Murphy, the answer to the
above question, would represent a political “life or death” decision.
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