(circa 1860s) On May 8, 1775, Morris was elected to represent his family household in southern
Westchester County (now
Bronx County), in the
New York Provincial Congress. As a member of the congress, he, along with most of his fellow delegates, concentrated on turning the colony into an independent state. However, his advocacy of independence brought him into conflict with his family, as well as with his mentor,
William Smith, who had abandoned the
Patriot cause when it pressed toward independence. Morris was a member of the
New York State Assembly in
1777–78. After the
Battle of Long Island in August 1776, the British seized New York City. Morris's mother, a
Loyalist, gave his family's estate, which was across the
Harlem River from
Manhattan, to the British for military use.
Continental Congress Morris was appointed as a delegate to the
Continental Congress and took his seat in Congress on 28 January 1778. He was selected to a committee in charge of coordinating reforms of the military with
George Washington. After witnessing the army encamped at
Valley Forge, he was so appalled by the conditions of the troops that he became the spokesman for the
Continental Army in Congress and subsequently helped enact substantial reforms in its training, methods, and financing. He also signed the
Articles of Confederation in 1778 and was its youngest signer. In 1778, when the
Conway Cabal was at its peak, some members of the Continental Congress attempted a no-confidence vote against George Washington. If it had succeeded, Washington would have been court-martialed and dismissed as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. Gouverneur Morris cast the decisive tie-breaking vote in favor of keeping Washington as Commander-in-Chief.
Lawyer and merchant In 1779, he was defeated for re-election to Congress, largely because his advocacy of a strong central government was at odds with the decentralist views prevalent in
New York. Defeated in his home state, he moved to
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to work as a lawyer and merchant. In 1780, Morris had a carriage accident in Philadelphia, and his left leg was amputated below the knee. Despite an automatic exemption from military duty because of his handicap and his service in the legislature, he joined a special "briefs" club for the protection of New York City, a forerunner of the modern
New York Guard.
Public office and Constitutional Convention .
Charles Willson Peale, 1783. . In Philadelphia, he was appointed assistant
superintendent of finance of the United States and served under
Robert Morris (no relation). He was selected as a Pennsylvania delegate to the
Constitutional Convention in 1787. During the Convention, he was a friend and ally of Washington and others who favored a strong central government. Morris was elected to serve on the Committee of Style and Arrangement, a committee of five (chaired by
William Samuel Johnson), which drafted the final language of the proposed constitution. Morris has been credited by most historians with authorship of the final version of the preamble, including changing the opening line "We, the People of the States" to "We, the People of the United States."
Catherine Drinker Bowen, in her 1966 book
Miracle at Philadelphia, called Morris the committee's "
amanuensis," meaning that it was his pen that was responsible for most of the draft and its final polished form. It is said by some that Morris was "an
aristocrat to the core," who believed that "there never was, nor ever will be a civilized Society without an Aristocracy." It is also alleged that he thought that common people were incapable of self-government because he feared that the poor would sell their votes to the rich and that voting should be restricted to property owners.
Duff Cooper wrote of Morris that although he "had warmly espoused the cause of the colonists in the American War of Independence, he retained a cynically aristocratic view of life and a profound contempt for democratic theories." Morris opposed admitting new western states on an equal basis with the existing eastern states for fear that the interior “wilderness” could not furnish "enlightened" national statesmen. Madison's summary of Morris's speech at the Convention on 11 July 1787 stated that his view "relative to the Western Country had not changed his opinion on that head. Among other objections it must be apparent they would not be able to furnish men equally enlightened, to share in the administration of our common interests." His reason given for that was regional: "The Busy haunts of men not the remote wilderness, was the proper School of political Talents. If the Western people get the power into their hands they will ruin the Atlantic interests." In that fear, Morris turned out to be in the minority. Jon Elster has suggested that Morris's attempt to limit the future power of the West was a strategic move designed to limit the power of slaveholding states because Morris believed that slavery would predominate in new Western states. At the Convention, he gave more speeches than any other delegate, a total of 173. As a matter of principle, he often vigorously defended the right of anyone to practice his chosen religion without interference, and he argued to include such language in the Constitution. During the Convention Gouverneur Morris boarded at Miss Dally's boarding house, along with Alexander Hamilton and Elbridge Gerry. Based on this discovery, an application was submitted to the State of Pennsylvania to install a historic marker on Market and 3rd Street in Philadelphia to honor Miss Dally and the location where the "Penman of the Constitution" boarded. Researchers have theorized that the five-member Committee on Style and Arrangement, which included Gouverneur Morris, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, may have met at Miss Dally's boarding house between September 8 to September 12, which would have been the most convenient location for all five delegates.
Opposition to slavery 's 1925 painting,
Foundation of the American Government. Gouverneur Morris was one of the few delegates at the
Philadelphia Convention who spoke openly against domestic slavery. According to
James Madison, who took notes at the Convention, Morris spoke openly against slavery on 8 August 1787 and stated that it was incongruous to say that a slave was both a man and property at the same time: According to Madison, Morris felt that the U.S. Constitution's purpose was to protect the rights of humanity, which was incongruous with promoting slavery:
Minister Plenipotentiary to France , 1789, Paris. Morris went to
France on business in 1789 and served as
Minister Plenipotentiary to France from 1792 to 1794. His diaries during that time have become a valuable chronicle of the
French Revolution and capture much of that era's turbulence and violence and document his affairs with women there. Compared to
Thomas Jefferson, Morris was far more critical of the French Revolution and considerably more sympathetic to the deposed queen consort,
Marie Antoinette. Commenting on her grandfather's sometimes
Tory-minded outlook of the world, Anne Cary Morris stated, "His creed was rather to form the government to suit the condition, character, manners, and habits of the people. In France this opinion led him to take the monarchical view, firmly believing that a republican form of government would not suit the French character." Morris was "the only foreign representative who remained in his post throughout the worst days of
the Terror." On one occasion, when Morris "found himself the center of a hostile mob in favor of hanging him on the nearest lamppost, he unfastened his wooden leg, brandished it above his head, and proclaimed himself an American who had lost a limb fighting for liberty," upon which "[t]he mob's suspicions melted into enthusiastic cheers" (even though, as noted above, Morris had in fact lost his leg as a result of a carriage accident). While Morris was minister, the
Marquis de Lafayette, who had been an important participant in the
American Revolution, was exiled from France and his family imprisoned, and
Thomas Paine, another important figure, was arrested and imprisoned in France. Morris's efforts on their behalf have been criticized as desultory and insufficient. After a change of the French government and after Morris was replaced as minister, his successor,
James Monroe, secured Paine's release.
U.S. Senate He returned to the United States in 1798 and was elected in
April 1800, as a
Federalist, to the
U.S. Senate, filling the vacancy caused by the resignation of
James Watson. Morris served from May 3, 1800 to March 3, 1803 and was defeated for re-election in
February 1803.
Later career On 4 July 1806, he was elected an honorary member of the New York
Society of the Cincinnati. After leaving the Senate, he served as Chairman of the
Erie Canal Commission from 1810 to 1813. The
Erie Canal helped to transform New York City into a financial capital, the possibilities of which were apparent to Morris when he said that "the proudest empire in Europe is but a bubble compared to what America will be, must be, in the course of two centuries, perhaps of one." He was one of the three men who drew up the
Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which laid out the
Manhattan street grid. Morris's final public act was to support the
Hartford Convention during the
War of 1812. He even pushed for secession to create a separate New York-New England Confederation because he saw the war as a result of slaveholders, who wanted to expand their territory. In the words of the biographer
Richard Brookhiser, "The man who wrote the Constitution judged it to be a failure and was willing to scrap it." Morris was elected a member of the
American Antiquarian Society in 1814. ==Personal life==