Obama’s Constitution

President Obama has a new slogan. It used to be “It’s Bush’s fault.” That, however, has become a bit shopworn, six years into a presidency that hasn’t managed to get the economy producing jobs at anything like, say, the Reagan rate. So now he’s blaming — wait for it — Roger Sherman. He is the only signer of all four of America’s great state papers, the Continental Association (that set up the trade boycott with Britain), the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. Sherman’s greatest contribution was as architect of the so-called Connecticut Compromise. That was the breakthrough that gave popular representation to the House of Representatives and equal suffrage of the states to the Senate. It is a core principle of our government.