Indianapolis Litigation

Your friendly Indianapolis attorney at Alerding Castor Hewitt LLP here with a history lesson and tie in to business law.  Most of you have probably heard the term “gerrymander” and know that it refers to a process of dividing a territory into districts in order to give one political party an advantage over another by concentrating the voting strength of that party in as many districts as possible.  Fewer of you probably know the origin of the term, and I imagine that  even fewer know much about the man whose name spawned the term.

The term first originated in 1812 to describe a rather bizarre looking district boundary in Essex County, Massachusetts attributable to then-Governor of that state, Elbridge Gerry.  Gerry had signed a bill passed by the state’s legislature to redraw districts that favored his party, the Democratic-Republicans, over the Federalists (whose influence was on the decline).  Gerry would go on to be elected Vice President later that year and served under President James Madison; however, he died a couple of years later in office at the age of 70, thereby becoming the  first Vice President who did not go on to become President.

Despite the notorious practice that has been associated with his name, Gerry was a Founding Father who made several contributions to the country:  For example, he was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and of the Articles of Confederation.  He was also among the dissenting voices that refused to sign the Constitution because it did not contain a bill of rights.  As those historians among you know, it was an agreement to create the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) that helped to secure ratification of the Constitution.