IN THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.
At the end of 1777, while still but twenty-five years old, Morris was
elected to the Continental Congress, and took his seat in that body at
Yorktown in the following January.
He was immediately appointed as one of a committee of five members to go
to Washington's headquarters at Valley Forge and examine into the
condition of the continental troops.
The dreadful suffering of the American army in this winter camp was such
that its memory has literally eaten its way into the hearts of our
people, and it comes before our minds with a vividness that dims the
remembrance of any other disaster. Washington's gaunt, half-starved
continentals, shoeless and ragged, shivered in their crazy huts, worn
out by want and illness, and by the bitter cold; while the members of
the Continental Congress not only failed to support them in the present,
but even grudged them the poor gift of a promise of half-pay in the
future. Some of the delegates, headed by Samuel Adams, were actually
caballing against the great chief himself, the one hope of America.
Meanwhile the States looked askance at each other, and each sunk into
supine indifference when its own borders were for the moment left
unthreatened by the foe. Throughout the Revolutionary War our people
hardly once pulled with a will together; although almost every locality
in turn, on some one occasion, varied its lethargy by a spasm of
terrible energy. Yet, again, it must be remembered that we were never
more to be dreaded than when our last hope seemed gone; and if the
people were unwilling to show the wisdom and self-sacrifice that would
have insured success, they were equally determined under no
circumstances whatever to acknowledge final defeat.
To Jay, with whom he was always intimate, Morris wrote in strong terms
from Valley Forge, painting things as they were, but without a shadow of
doubt or distrust; for he by this time saw clearly enough that in
American warfare the darkest hour was often followed close indeed by
dawn. "The skeleton of an army presents itself to our eyes in a naked,
starving condition, out of health, out of spirits. But I have seen Fort
George in 1777." The last sentence refers to what he saw of Schuyler's
forces, when affairs in New York State were at the blackest, just before
the tide began to turn against Burgoyne. He then went on to beseech Jay
to exert himself to the utmost on the great question of taxation, the
most vital of all. Morris himself was so good a financier that
revolutionary financial economics drove him almost wild. The Continental
Congress, of which he had just become a member, he did not esteem very
highly, and dismissed it, as well as the currency, as having "both
depreciated." The State of Pennsylvania, he remarked, was "sick unto
death;" and added that "Sir William [the British general] would prove a
most damnable physician."
Most wisely, in examining and reporting, he paid heed almost exclusively
to Washington's recommendations, and the plan he and his colleagues
produced was little more than an enlargement of the general's
suggestions as to filling out the regiments, regulating rank, modeling
the various departments, etc. In fact, Morris now devoted himself to
securing the approval of Congress for Washington's various plans.
In urging one of the most important of these he encountered very
determined opposition. Washington was particularly desirous of securing
a permanent provision for the officers by the establishment of a system
of half-pay, stating that without some such arrangement he saw no hope
whatever for the salvation of the cause; for as things then were the
officers were leaving day by day; and of those who went home on furlough
to the Eastern and Southern States, many, instead of returning, went
into some lucrative employment. This fact, by the way, while showing the
difficulties with which Washington had to deal, and therefore his
greatness, since he successfully dealt with them, at the same time puts
the officers of the Revolution in no very favorable light as compared
with their descendants at the time of the great rebellion; and the
Continental Congress makes a still worse showing.
When Morris tried to push through a measure providing for half-pay for
life he was fought, tooth and nail, by many of his colleagues,
including, to their lasting discredit be it said, every delegate from
New England. The folly of these ultra-democratic delegates almost passes
belief. They seemed incapable of learning how the fight for liberty
should be made. Their leaders, like Samuel Adams and John Hancock, did
admirable service in exciting the Americans to make the struggle; but
once it was begun, their function ended, and from thence onward they
hampered almost as much as they helped the patriot cause. New England,
too, had passed through the period when its patriotic fervor was at
white heat. It still remained as resolute as ever; and if the danger had
been once more brought home to its very door-sill, then it would have
risen again as it had risen before; but without the spur of an immediate
necessity it moved but sluggishly.
The New Englanders were joined by the South Carolina delegates. Morris
was backed by the members from New York, Virginia, and the other States,
and he won the victory, but not without being obliged to accept
amendments that took away some of the good of the measure. Half-pay was
granted, but it was only to last for seven years after the close of the
war; and the paltry bounty of eighty dollars was to be given to every
soldier who served out his time to the end.
At the same period Morris was engaged on numerous other committees,
dealing chiefly with the finances, or with the remedy of abuses that had
crept into the administration of the army. In one of his reports he
exposed thoroughly the frightful waste in the purchase and distribution
of supplies, and, what was much worse, the accompanying frauds. These
frauds had become a most serious evil; Jay, in one of his letters to
Morris, had already urgently requested him to turn his attention
especially to stopping the officers, in particular those of the staff,
from themselves engaging in trade, on account of the jobbing and
swindling that it produced. The shoddy contractors of the Civil War had
plenty of predecessors in the Revolution.
When these events occurred, in the spring of 1778, it was already three
years after the fight at Lexington; certainly, the continental armies of
that time do not compare favorably, even taking all difficulties into
account, with the Confederate forces which, in 1864, three years after
the fall of Sumter, fronted Grant and Sherman. The men of the Revolution
failed to show the capacity to organize for fighting purposes, and the
ability to bend all energies towards the attainment of a given end,
which their great-grandsons of the Civil War, both at the North and the
South, possessed. Yet, after all, their very follies sprang from their
virtues, from their inborn love of freedom, and their impatience of the
control of outsiders. So fierce had they been in their opposition to the
rule of foreigners that they were now hardly willing to submit to being
ruled by themselves; they had seen power so abused that they feared its
very use; they were anxious to assert their independence of all mankind,
even of each other. Stubborn, honest, and fearless, they were taught
with difficulty, and only by the grinding logic of an imperious
necessity, that it was no surrender of their freedom to submit to rulers
chosen by themselves, through whom alone that freedom could be won. They
had not yet learned that right could be enforced only by might, that
union was to the full as important as liberty, because it was the
prerequisite condition for the establishment and preservation of
liberty.
But if the Americans of the Revolution were not perfect, how their
faults dwindle when we stand them side by side with their European
compeers! What European nation then brought forth rulers as wise and
pure as our statesmen, or masses as free and self-respecting as our
people? There was far more swindling, jobbing, cheating, and stealing in
the English army than in ours; the British king and his ministers need
no criticism; and the outcome of the war proves that their nation as a
whole was less resolute than our own. As for the other European powers,
the faults of our leaders sink out of sight when matched against the
ferocious frivolity of the French noblesse, or the ignoble, sordid,
bloody baseness of those swinish German kinglets who let out their
subjects to do hired murder, and battened on the blood and sweat of the
wretched beings under them, until the whirlwind of the French Revolution
swept their carcasses from off the world they cumbered.
We must needs give all honor to the men who founded our Commonwealth;
only in so doing let us remember that they brought into being a
government under which their children were to grow better and not worse.
* * * * *
Washington at once recognized in Morris a man whom he could trust in
every way, and on whose help he could rely in other matters besides
getting his officers half-pay. The young New Yorker was one of the great
Virginian's warmest supporters in Congress, and took the lead in
championing his cause at every turn. He was the leader in putting down
intrigues like that of the French-Irish adventurer Conway, his ready
tongue and knowledge of parliamentary tactics, no less than his ability,
rendering him the especial dread and dislike of the anti-Washington
faction.
Washington wrote to Morris very freely, and in one of his letters
complained of the conduct of some of the officers who wished to resign
when affairs looked dark and to be reinstated as soon as they
brightened a little. Morris replied with one of his bright caustic
letters, sparing his associates very little, their pompous tediousness
and hesitation being peculiarly galling to a man so far-seeing and so
prompt to make up his mind. He wrote: "We are going on with the
regimental arrangements as fast as possible, and I think the day begins
to appear with respect to that business. Had our Saviour addressed a
chapter to the rulers of mankind, as he did many to the subjects, I am
persuaded his good sense would have dictated this text: _Be not wise
overmuch_. Had the several members who compose our multifarious body
been only wise _enough_, our business would long since have been
completed. But our superior abilities, or the desire of appearing to
possess them, lead us to such exquisite tediousness of debate that the
most precious moments pass unheeded away.... As to what you mention of
the extraordinary demeanor of some gentlemen, I cannot but agree with
you that such conduct is not the most _honorable_. But, on the other
hand, you must allow that it is the most _safe_ and certainly you are
not to learn that, however ignorant of that happy art in your own
person, the bulk of us bipeds know well how to balance solid pudding
against empty praise. There are other things, my dear sir, beside
virtue, which are their own _reward_."
Washington chose Morris as his confidential friend and agent to bring
privately before Congress a matter in reference to which he did not
consider it politic to write publicly. He was at that time annoyed
beyond measure by the shoals of foreign officers who were seeking
employment in the army, and he wished Congress to stop giving them
admission to the service. These foreign officers were sometimes
honorable men, but more often adventurers; with two or three striking
exceptions they failed to do as well as officers of native birth; and,
as later in the Civil War, so in the Revolution, it appeared that
Americans could be best commanded by Americans. Washington had the
greatest dislike for these adventurers, stigmatizing them as "men who in
the first instance tell you that they wish for nothing more than the
honor of serving in so glorious a cause as volunteers, the next day
solicit rank without pay, the day following want money advanced to them,
and in the course of a week want further promotion, and are not
satisfied with anything you can do for them." He ended by writing: "I do
most devoutly wish that we had not a single foreigner among us, except
the Marquis de Lafayette, who acts upon very different principles from
those which govern the rest." To Lafayette, indeed, America owes as much
as to any of her own children, for his devotion to us was as
disinterested and sincere as it was effective; and it is a pleasant
thing to remember that we, in our turn, not only repaid him materially,
but, what he valued far more, that our whole people yielded him all his
life long the most loving homage a man could receive. No man ever kept
pleasanter relations with a people he had helped than Lafayette did with
us.
Morris replied to Washington that he would do all in his power to aid
him. Meanwhile he had also contracted a very warm friendship for Greene,
then newly appointed quartermaster general of the army, and proved a
most useful ally, both in and out of Congress, in helping the general to
get his department in good running order, and in extricating it from the
frightful confusion in which it had previously been plunged.
He also specially devoted himself at this time to an investigation of
the finances, which were in a dreadful condition; and by the ability
with which he performed his very varied duties he acquired such
prominence that he was given the chairmanship of the most important of
all the congressional committees. This was the committee to which was
confided the task of conferring with the British commissioners, who had
been sent over, in the spring of 1778, to treat with the Americans, in
accordance with the terms of what were known as Lord North's
conciliatory bills. These bills were two in number, the first giving up
the right of taxation, about which the quarrel had originally arisen,
and the second authorizing the commissioners to treat with the revolted
colonies on all questions in dispute. They were introduced in Parliament
on account of the little headway made by the British in subduing their
former subjects, and were pressed hastily through because of the fear of
an American alliance with France, which was then, indeed, almost
concluded.
Three years before, these bills would have achieved their end; but now
they came by just that much time too late. The embittered warfare had
lasted long enough entirely to destroy the old friendly feelings; and
the Americans having once tasted the "perilous pleasure" of freedom,
having once stretched out their arms and stood before the world's eyes
as their own masters, it was certain that they would never forego their
liberty, no matter with what danger it was fraught, no matter how light
the yoke, or how kindly the bondage, by which it was to be replaced.
Two days after the bills were received, Morris drew up and presented
his report, which was unanimously adopted by Congress. Its tenor can be
gathered from its summing up, which declared that the indispensable
preliminaries to any treaty would have to be the withdrawal of all the
British fleets and armies, and the acknowledgment of the independence of
the United States; and it closed by calling on the several States to
furnish without delay their quotas of troops for the coming campaign.
This decisive stand was taken when America was still without allies in
the contest; but ten days afterwards messengers came to Congress,
bearing copies of the treaty with France. It was ratified forthwith, and
again Morris was appointed chairman of a committee, this time to issue
an address on the subject to the American people at large. He penned
this address himself, explaining fully the character of the crisis, and
going briefly over the events that had led to it; and shortly afterwards
he drew up, on behalf of Congress, a sketch of all the proceedings in
reference to the British commissioners, under the title of "Observations
on the American Revolution," giving therein a masterly outline not only
of the doings of Congress in the particular matter under consideration,
but also an account of the causes of the war, of the efforts of the
Americans to maintain peace, and of the chief events that had taken
place, as well as a comparison between the contrasting motives and aims
of the contestants.
Morris was one of the committee appointed to receive the French
minister, M. Gerard. Immediately afterwards he was also selected by
Congress to draft the instructions which were to be sent to Franklin,
the American minister at the court of Versailles. As a token of the
closeness of our relations with France, he was requested to show these
instructions to M. Gerard, which he accordingly did; and some
interesting features of the conversation between the two men have been
preserved for us in the despatches of Gerard to the French court. The
Americans were always anxious to undertake the conquest of Canada,
although Washington did not believe the scheme feasible; and the French
strongly, although secretly, opposed it, as it was their policy from the
beginning that Canada should remain English. Naturally the French did
not wish to see America transformed into a conquering power, a menace to
themselves and to the Spaniards as well as to the English; nor can they
be criticised for feeling in this way, or taunted with acting only from
motives of self-interest. It is doubtless true that their purposes in
going into the war were mixed; they unquestionably wished to benefit
themselves, and to hurt their old and successful rival; but it is
equally unquestionable that they were also moved by a generous spirit of
sympathy and admiration for the struggling colonists. It would, however,
have been folly to let this sympathy blind them to the consequences that
might ensue to all Europeans having possessions in America, if the
Americans should become not only independent, but also aggressive; and
it was too much to expect them to be so far-sighted as to see that, once
independent, it was against the very nature of things that the Americans
should _not_ be aggressive, and impossible that they should be aught but
powerful and positive instruments, both in their own persons and by
their example, in freeing the whole western continent from European
control.
Accordingly M. Gerard endeavored, though without success, to prevail on
Morris not to mention the question of an invasion of Canada in the
instructions to Franklin. He also warned the American of the danger of
alarming Spain by manifesting a wish to encroach on its territory in the
Mississippi valley, mentioning and condemning the attitude taken by
several members of Congress to the effect that the navigation of the
Mississippi should belong equally to the English and Americans.
Morris's reply showed how little even the most intelligent American of
that time--especially if he came from the Northern or Eastern
States--could appreciate the destiny of his country. He stated that his
colleagues favored restricting the growth of our country to the south
and west, and believed that the navigation of the Mississippi, from the
Ohio down, should belong exclusively to the Spaniards, as otherwise the
western settlements springing up in the valley of the Ohio, and on the
shores of the Great Lakes, would not only domineer over Spain, but also
over the United States, and would certainly render themselves
independent in the end. He further said that some at least of those who
were anxious to secure the navigation of the Mississippi, were so from
interested motives, having money ventures in the establishments along
the river. However, if he at this time failed fully to grasp his
country's future, he was later on one of the first in the Northern
States to recognize it; and once he did see it he promptly changed, and
became the strongest advocate of our territorial expansion.
Accompanying his instructions to Franklin, Morris sent a pamphlet
entitled "Observations on the Finances of America," to be laid before
the French ministry. Practically, all that the pamphlet amounted to was
a most urgent begging letter, showing that our own people could not, or
would not, either pay taxes, or take up a domestic loan, so that we
stood in dire need of a subsidy from abroad. The drawing up of such a
document could hardly have been satisfactory employment for a high
spirited man who wished to be proud of his country.
All through our negotiations with France and England Morris's views
coincided with those of Washington, Hamilton, Jay, and the others who
afterwards became leaders of the Federalist party. Their opinions were
well expressed by Jay in a letter to Morris written about this time,
which ran: "I view a return to the domination of Britain with horror,
and would risk all for independence; but that point ceded, ... the
destruction of Old England would hurt me; I wish it well; it afforded my
ancestors an asylum from persecution." The rabid American adherents of
France could not understand such sentiments, and the more mean spirited
among them always tried to injure Morris on account of his loyalist
relatives, although so many families were divided in this same way,
Franklin's only son being himself a prominent Tory. So bitter was this
feeling that when, later on, Morris's mother, who was within the
British lines, became very ill, he actually had to give up his intended
visit to her, because of the furious clamor that was raised against it.
He refers bitterly, in one of his letters to Jay, to the "malevolence of
individuals," as something he had to expect, but which he announced that
he would conquer by so living as to command the respect of those whose
respect was worth having.
When, however, his foes were of sufficient importance to warrant his
paying attention to them individually, Morris proved abundantly able to
take care of himself, and to deal heavier blows than he received. This
was shown in the controversy which convulsed Congress over the conduct
of Silas Deane, the original American envoy to France. Deane did not
behave very well, but at first he was certainly much more sinned against
than sinning, and Morris took up his cause warmly. Thomas Paine, the
famous author of "Common Sense," who was secretary of the Committee of
Foreign Affairs, attacked Deane and his defenders, as well as the court
of France, with peculiar venom, using as weapons the secrets he became
acquainted with through his official position, and which he was in honor
bound not to divulge. For this Morris had him removed from his
secretaryship, and in the debate handled him extremely roughly,
characterizing him with contemptuous severity as "a mere adventurer from
England ... ignorant even of grammar," and ridiculing his pretensions to
importance. Paine was an adept in the art of invective; but he came out
second best in this encounter, and never forgot or forgave his
antagonist.
As a rule, however, Morris was kept too busily at work to spare time for
altercations. He was chairman of three important standing committees,
those on the commissary, quartermaster's, and medical departments, and
did the whole business for each. He also had more than his share of
special committee work, besides playing his full part in the debates and
consultations of the Congress itself. Moreover, his salary was so small
that he had to eke it out by the occasional practice of his profession.
He devoted himself especially to the consideration of our finances and
of our foreign relations; and, as he grew constantly to possess more and
more weight and influence in Congress, he was appointed, early in 1779,
as chairman of a very important committee, which was to receive
communications from our ministers abroad, as well as from the French
envoy. He drew out its report, together with the draft of instructions
to our foreign ministers, which it recommended. Congress accepted the
first, and adopted the last, without change, whereby it became the
basis of the treaty by which we finally won peace. In his draft he had
been careful not to bind down our representatives on minor points, and
to leave them as large liberty of action as was possible; but the main
issues, such as the boundaries, the navigation of the Mississippi, and
the fisheries, were discussed at length and in order.
At the time this draft of instructions for a treaty was sent out there
was much demand among certain members in Congress that we should do all
in our power to make foreign alliances, and to procure recognitions of
our independence in every possible quarter. To this Morris was heartily
opposed, deeming that this "rage for treaties," as he called it, was not
very dignified on our part. He held rightly that our true course was to
go our own gait, without seeking outside favor, until we had shown
ourselves able to keep our own place among nations, when the
recognitions would come without asking. Whether European nations
recognized us as a free people, or not, was of little moment so long as
we ourselves knew that we had become one in law and in fact, through the
right of battle and the final arbitrament of the sword.
Besides these questions of national policy, Morris also had to deal with
an irritating matter affecting mainly New York. This was the dispute of
that state with the people of Vermont, who wished to form a separate
commonwealth of their own, while New York claimed that their lands came
within its borders. Even the fear of their common foe, the British,
against whom they needed to employ their utmost strength, was barely
sufficient to prevent the two communities from indulging in a small
civil war of their own; and they persisted in pressing their rival
claims upon the attention of Congress, and clamoring for a decision from
that harassed and overburdened body. Clinton, who was much more of a
politician than a statesman, led the popular party in this foolish
business, the majority of the New Yorkers being apparently nearly as
enthusiastic in asserting their sovereignty over Vermont as they were in
declaring their independence of Britain. Morris, however, was very
half-hearted in pushing the affair before Congress. He doubted if
Congress had the power, and he knew it lacked the will, to move in the
matter at all; and besides he did not sympathize with the position taken
by his State. He was wise enough to see that the Vermonters had much of
the right on their side in addition to the great fact of possession; and
that New York would be probably unable to employ force enough to conquer
them. Clinton was a true type of the separatist or states-rights
politician of that day: he cared little how the national weal was
affected by the quarrel; and he was far more anxious to bluster than to
fight over the matter, to which end he kept besieging the delegates in
Congress with useless petitions. In a letter to him Morris put the case
with his usual plainness, telling him that it was perfectly idle to keep
worrying Congress to take action, for it would certainly not do so, and
if it did render a decision, the Vermonters would no more respect it
than they would the Pope's Bull. He went on to show his characteristic
contempt for half-measures, and capacity for striking straight at the
root of things: "Either let these people alone, or conquer them. I
prefer the latter; but I doubt the means. If we have the means let them
be used, and let Congress deliberate and decide, or deliberate without
deciding,--it is of no consequence. Success will sanctify every
operation.... If we have not the means of conquering these people we
must let them alone. We must continue our impotent threats, or we must
make a treaty.... If we continue our threats they will either hate or
despise us, and perhaps both.... On the whole, then, my conclusion is
here, as on most other human affairs, act decisively, fight or
submit--conquer or treat." Morris was right; the treaty was finally
made, and Vermont became an independent State.
But the small politicians of New York would not forgive him for the
wisdom and the broad feeling of nationality he showed on this and so
many other questions; and they defeated him when he was a candidate for
reelection to Congress at the end of 1779. The charge they urged against
him was that he devoted his time wholly to the service of the nation at
large, and not to that of New York in particular; his very devotion to
the public business, which had kept him from returning to the State,
being brought forward to harm him. Arguments of this kind are common
enough even at the present day, and effective too, among that numerous
class of men with narrow minds and selfish hearts. Many an able and
upright Congressman since Morris has been sacrificed because his
constituents found he was fitted to do the exact work needed; because he
showed himself capable of serving the whole nation, and did not devote
his time to advancing the interests of only a portion thereof.