Roger Sherman Baldwin

Male

January 4, 1793

February 19, 1863

New Haven, CT

New Haven, CT

Emily Perkins Baldwin (October 25, 1820)

Roger Sherman Baldwin was the descendant of John Baldwin, one of the original settlers of New Haven, Connecticut. His father, Simeon Baldwin, was a prominent politician and judge in both New York and Connecticut. His mother Rebecca Sherman died when he was only two years old on September 4, 1795, and his father married his mother's younger sister Elizabeth Sherman Burr, the widow of Sturges Burr of New York City.

Baldwin studied at the Hopkins Grammar School under his cousin Henry Sherman, and entered Yale College in 1807. He graduated from Yale in 1811 with honors when he was eighteen years old. Baldwin entered the Litchfield Law School in 1812, following in the footsteps of his brother Ebenezer Baldwin, who had attended the Law School in 1810. He was admitted to the bar in New ...Haven in 1814. Since his father was then serving as a judge on the bench, he began his law practice alone.

On October 25, 1820, Baldwin married Emily Perkins, the youngest daughter of Enoch Perkins of Hartford, a Yale classmate of his father's. They had nine children, and four of their surviving sons would attend Yale.

Like many law school graduates, Baldwin pursued a considerable political as well as legal career. In 1826, Baldwin was elected to the City Common Council of New Haven. From 1837 to 1838, he served as a member of the Whig Party in the State Senate, holding the office of president pro term in 1838. Baldwin then served in the Connecticut State House of Representatives from 1841 to 1842.

Baldwin's abolitionist sentiments were an integral part of his legal career. He once defended and secured the freedom of a runaway slave, and later stood up to an angry crowd who opposed the building of a training school for African Americans in New Haven. Perhaps the most notable legal case in the career of Roger Sherman Baldwin was that of the slave ship Amistad. Baldwin revealed his anti-slavery sentiments in the Amistad case when he defended the slaves who had revolted on the schooner and were charged with murder and piracy. He defended the case along with former president John Quincy Adams in front of the Supreme Court from 1839 to 1840.

In 1843, Baldwin ran as a Whig for governor and was defeated, but he launched a successful campaign in 1844, and was re-elected in 1845. During his gubernatorial term, Baldwin undertook extensive statewide reforms that allowed Connecticut to thrive. For example, Baldwin took on education reform in Connecticut. He organized a Committee on Education under a State Superintendent of Schools whose duty it was to organize and standardize education statewide. He also lessened statewide restrictions on immigration, allowing huge numbers of Irish and German immigrants to boost Connecticut manufacturing. Furthermore, Baldwin addressed common fraudulent election practices by reinstating a law that required voters to be registered with a local official. He also recommended undertaking numerous other reforms, including prison labor, temperance, bankruptcy, and elections to the General Assembly although he had little success with these.

During this same period, Baldwin received two honorary LLD's from Trinity College and Yale College. In addition, from 1847 to 1851, Baldwin served as the United States Senator from Connecticut where he made many important speeches. He spoke out against the Mexican War and its implications, particularly citing how the war had made possible the extension of slavery by the admission of California as a state. In 1850, Baldwin also made a speech condemning the Fugitive Slave Law.

After leaving Congress in 1851, Baldwin resumed his legal practice which was reported to be more lucrative than that of any other lawyer in the state. Baldwin again entered the political arena, when in 1860 he served as a Presidential Elector and voted for Abraham Lincoln. In 1861, he went to the National Peace Convention in Washington as the delegate from Connecticut, and he prepared the Minority Report for the Committee on Resolutions and supported Kentucky's application to Congresses to call a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Baldwin died in New Haven on February 19, 1863 and was buried in Grove Street Cemetery.
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"The law school at present is in a pretty flourishing condition. It contains upwards of thirty students, and the number has been continually increasing since I came. It is composed of persons from about every section of the Union, who tho' they may bring with them the habits and peculiarities of the places to which they belong, appear in general quite ambitious and industrious." Roger S. Baldwin to his father, November 1, 1812, Baldwin Collection, Yale University.

1812

Attended Hopkins Grammar School and later Graduated from Yale College in 1811.

Lawyer; Political Office

New Haven, CT in 1814

Whig; Federalist; Republican

U.S. Senator (CT) 1847-1851

State Senator (CT) 1837-1838
State Representative (CT) 1841-1842
Governor (CT) 1844-1846

CT Delegate to the National Peace Conference of 1861. CT Presidential Elector in 1860.

City Council (New Haven, CT) 1826

Baldwin, Roger Sherman. Notes on law taken from the lectures of the Honble. Tapping Reeve and James Gould, esquire … at the Litchfield Law School, 1812-1813. Rare Book Collection, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale University.

Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School, Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1849, 10.

Litchfield County Bar Association Records, 1812, Litchfield Historical Society, Helga J. Ingraham Memorial Library.

MSS 63: Baldwin Family Papers, 1734-1977, New Haven Museum, New Haven, CT.

Dexter, Franklin Bowditch. Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College with Annals of College History, Vol. 6. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912.

Hooker, John. Connecticut Reports, Vol. 30. Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Lockwood and Company, 1863.

Lewis, William Draper. Great American Lawyers, Vol. 3. Philadelphia, The John C. Winston Company, 1908.

White, David O. "Roger Sherman Baldwin," Connecticut State Library. Last updated April, 2003. http://www.cslib.org/gov/baldwinrs.htm [also contains an extensive bibliography]