The Wisdom of Roger Sherman

By Steven Montgomery

With the U.S. Dollar’s recent fluctuations in value, perhaps its time to revisit the wisdom* of founding father, Roger Sherman. More than twenty years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, wrote a little pamphlet entitled, A Caveat Against Injustice: Or An Inquiry Into The Evils Of A Fluctuating Medium Of Exchange. In this pamphlet, published in 1752, he warned:

“if what is us’d [original spelling] as a Medium of Exchange is fluctuating in its Value it is no better than unjust Weights and Measures, both which are condemn’d [original spelling] by the Laws of GOD and Man, and therefore the longest and most universal Custom could never make the Use of such a Medium either lawful or reasonable.”

Sherman was certainly no friend of a fluctuating currency, such as fiat paper money, and thirty-five years later, during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, he had a chance to “crush” paper money once and for all and forever. First, on August 16, 1787, he along with a overwhelming majority of the other delegates from various states, voted to deny the federal government the power to print paper money. Olliver Ellsworth, a fellow delegate from Connecticut remarking that this was a “favorable moment to shut and bar the door against paper money.“

But the job was only half done, the power to print paper money had to be denied to the states. So, on August 28th, 1787, he and James Wilson from Pennsylvania, succeeded in amending the Constitution so that: The power to print paper money (emit bills of credit) was denied to the states; and that, “No state could make AnyThing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts” (see: Article 1 Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution). Sherman noting that the day was a “favorable crisis for crushing paper money.”

But today, In spite of Roger Sherman’s wisdom in killing paper money in the Constitution, we now have paper money. And the U.S. Dollar now “floats” and fluctuates in its value against all other currencies and commodities in the world. I guess we haven’t learned anything from history. Or will we have to learn the hard way?

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*Thomas Jefferson once said of Sherman: “That is Mr. Sherman of Connecticut, a man who has never said a foolish thing in his life.”