Elbridge Thomas Gerry (pronounced /ˈgɛri/) (July 17, 1744 – November 23,
1814) was an American statesman and diplomat. As a Democratic-Republican he was
selected as the fifth Vice President of the United States of America, serving
under James Madison, from March 4, 1813 until his death a year and a half
later.[1] He was the first Vice President never to run for President of the
United States.
Elbridge Gerry
Signer of the Declaration of Independence
ELBRIDGE GERRY was born July 17, 1744 in
Marblehead, Massachusetts. His father, Thomas Gerry, was a former sea captain
from Newton, England, who in 1730 came to America and established himself as a
shipping and import merchant. Elbridge, the third son in a family of twelve, was
a slender young man with a slight stammer in his speech. He planned to become a
physician, but soon after he graduated from Harvard in 1765, he joined his
father and brothers in the mercantile business, and carved out a considerable
fortune for himself as a merchant.
Gerry's public life began in 1773, when he sat in the general
court of Massachusetts bay, as the representative of Marblehead, and from this
time until his death in 1814, he was, with short interruptions, in continuous
public service. In May of the following year, Mr. Gerry was re-elected to the
same office. During the general court that year, Samuel Adams introduced his
celebrated motion for the appointment of a standing committee of correspondence
and inquiry. Though one of the youngest members, Gerry was appointed a member of
this committee and he took an active and prominent part in the committee's
proceedings.
Gerry was enraged by the Boston Tea Party, which he saw as a
"savage mobility" of fellow colonists. He left politics for a time, however, his
absence was short lived. Once the Boston Port was closed to shipping, Gerry was
convinced by Samuel Adams to again aid the movement for independence. This he
did admirably, supervising the relief operation. As a member of the committee of
safety, he helped to direct the armed resistance against the British. He rounded
up ammunition, food, clothing and troops for the army at great personal
sacrifice.
Throughout his life, Gerry, though concerned to protect property
interests, was anti-British in sentiment and fearful of tyranny. He shared the
dangers from the British march on Lexington and Concord when during the night of
April 18, 1775, he escaped a detachment of redcoats by fleeing in his
nightclothes from an inn at Arlington into a cornfield.
Gerry's fellow citizens elected him delegate from Massachusetts
to the Continental Congress. He took his seat on February 9, 1776, as a
replacement for Thomas Cushing, who had been dropped as a delegate. He continued
to be a member of Congress until September 1785. Gerry cast his vote for
independence but was absent from Congress on August 2, the formal day of the
signing of the Declaration. He did not place his signature on the document until
November 19, 1776, a few months after his return.
During his service, he was appointed to serve on many
committees, whose business required great effort, and whose results involved the
highest interests of the country. He assisted in arranging the plan of a general
hospital, and of introducing better discipline into the army; and regulating the
commissary's departments. In several instances, he was appointed, with others,
to visit the army, to examine the state of the money and finances of the
country, and to expedite the settlement of public accounts. In the exercise of
his various official functions, no man exhibited more fidelity, or a more
unwearied zeal.
He married Ann Thompson, a respectable lady who had been
educated in Europe, with whom he returned to Massachusetts, they made their home
in Cambridge, a few miles from Boston. Ann bore him three sons and four
daughters, all of who survived him.
Retiring from Congress in 1793, Gerry was nominated in 1800 for
governor and in a close election Caleb Strong defeated him. In 1810 his efforts
for the same office were rewarded with success and he served for two terms. In
1812 he was nominated for the vice presidency of the United States on the ticket
with Madison and elected to that office. He died suddenly November 23, 1814 in
his carriage on his way to preside over the Senate.
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Elbridge Thomas Gerry (pronounced /ˈgɛri/) (July 17, 1744 – November 23,
1814) was an American statesman and diplomat. As a Democratic-Republican he was
selected as the fifth Vice President of the United States of America, serving
under James Madison, from March 4, 1813 until his death a year and a half
later.[1] He was the first Vice President never to run for President of the
United States.
Gerry was one of the signers of the
US Declaration of Independence and the
Articles of Confederation. He was one of three men who refused to sign the
Constitution because it did not then include a Bill of Rights. Gerry later
became
Governor of Massachusetts. He is known best for being the namesake of
gerrymandering, a process by which electoral districts are drawn with the
aim of aiding the party in power, although the pronunciation - jer -
differs from the pronunciation of Gerry's name (see
Gerrymandering#Etymology).
Early life
Born in
Marblehead, Massachusetts, the third of twelve children, he was a graduate
of
Harvard College, where he studied to be a doctor, attending there from age
fourteen. He worked in his father's shipping business and came to prominence
over his opposition to commerce taxes. He was elected to the General Court of
the province of Massachusetts in May 1772 on an anti-British
platform.
Career
Gerry was a Massachusetts delegate to the
Continental Congress from February 1776 to 1780. He also served from 1783
to September 1785 and was married in 1786 to Ann Thompson, the daughter of a
wealthy New York merchant, 21 years his junior. In 1787 he attended the
United States Constitutional Convention and was one of the delegates
voting against the new constitution (joining
George Mason and
Edmund Randolph in not signing it). He was elected to the
U.S. House under the new national government, and served in Congress from
1789 to 1793.
He surprised his friends by becoming a strong supporter of the new
government, and so vigorously supported
Alexander Hamilton's reports on public credit, including the assumption of
state debts, and supported Hamilton's new
Bank of the United States, that he was considered a leading champion by
the
Federalists. He did not stand for reelection in 1792. He was a
presidential elector for
John
Adams in the 1796 election, and was appointed by Adams to the critical
delegation to France that was humiliated by the French in the
XYZ
Affair. He stayed in France after his two colleagues returned, and
Federalists accused him of supporting the French. He returned in October 1798,
and switched his affiliation to
Democratic-Republican Party in 1800.
He was the unsuccessful Democratic-Republican nominee for governor of
Massachusetts in 1800, 1801, 1802 and 1803. In 1810 he was finally elected
Governor of Massachusetts as a Democratic-Republican. He was re-elected in
1811 but defeated in 1812 over his support for the redistricting bill that
created the word
gerrymander. He was chosen as vice president to
James Madison. He died in office of
heart failure in
Washington, D.C. and is buried there in the
Congressional Cemetery.
Legacy
The political cartoon that led to the term Gerrymandering
Gerry's grandson,
Elbridge Gerry (1813–1886), was a Member of the U.S. House of
Representatives from
Maine; his
great-grandson,
Peter G. Gerry, was a Member of the U.S. House of Representatives and
United States Senator from
Rhode
Island.
In 1812 the word Gerrymandering was coined when the Massachusetts
legislature redrew the boundaries of state legislative districts in order to
favor Governor Gerry's party. The Governor's strategy was to encompass most of
the state's Federalists, allowing them to win in that district while his
party, the Democratic-Republicans, took control of all the other districts in
the state. The term eventually became part of the American political
vocabulary, and the practice is still in use today.
The upstate New York town of
Elbridge, sitting just west of
Syracuse,
NY, with a population of roughly 6,000 is named in his honor, as is the
western New York town of
Gerry, in
Chautauqua County, between
Buffalo, NY, and
Jamestown, NY, with a population of about 2,000.
Quotes
"The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people
do not want virtue, but are dupes of pretended patriots"[2]
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