Elbridge Gerry
Born: July 17, 1744
Died: November 23, 1814
Colony/State: Massachusetts
Occupation / Public Role: Merchant, legislator, diplomat, Vice President of the United States
Contribution to the Founding Era: Delegate to the Continental Congress, signer of the Declaration of Independence, member of the Constitutional Convention, and later the fifth Vice President of the United States.
Elbridge Gerry was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, into a prosperous merchant family. He graduated from Harvard College in 1762 and entered business before becoming active in colonial politics. As tensions with Great Britain increased, Gerry aligned himself with the Patriot cause and became involved in Massachusetts resistance before independence.
Gerry served in the Continental Congress and became one of the Massachusetts signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was part of the Revolutionary generation that moved from protest to open separation, and he remained in public service through the war and the early national period.
After independence, Gerry continued to play a role in national politics. He attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787, though he ultimately refused to sign the Constitution. He believed the proposed national government lacked sufficient protections for liberty and did not include a bill of rights. Even so, he later served in the new federal government, including in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Gerry also served as a diplomat to France during the administration of John Adams. His name became permanently attached to the term “gerrymandering,” which grew out of a redistricting law signed while he was governor of Massachusetts. Later, he was elected Vice President of the United States under James Madison, serving from 1813 until his death in 1814.
Elbridge Gerry is one of those founding figures people often half-remember because of one weird political word, but his career was much larger than that. He was a signer of the Declaration, a major political figure in Massachusetts, a participant in the Constitutional Convention, and a vice president. That is a long road from Marblehead merchant to permanent entry in the American political dictionary.
Related Links
- Signers of the Declaration of Independence
- Declaration of Independence
- John Adams
- Samuel Adams
- John Hancock