GOUVERNEUR MORRIS.
This brilliant, energetic, and patriotic statesman was born in the
Province of New York, at Morrisania,--the seat of his family for several
generations,--in the year 1752. He was educated for the bar; but in
1775, at the age of three-and-twenty, he was elected a member of the
Provincial Congress of New York, in which he became at once
distinguished. When the recommendation of the Continental Congress to
the Colonies, to organize new forms of government, was received, he took
a leading place in the debates on the formation of a new constitution
for the State; and when the subject of independence was brought forward,
in order that the delegates of New York in the Continental Congress
might be clothed with sufficient authority, he delivered a speech of
great power, of which fragments only are preserved, but which evidently
embraced the most comprehensive and statesmanlike views of the situation
and future prospects of this country. Speaking of the capacity of
America to sustain herself without a connection with Great Britain, he
said:--
"Thus, Sir, by means of that great gulf which rolls its waves between
Europe and America; by the situation of these Colonies, always adapted
to hinder or interrupt all communication between the two; by the
productions of our soil, which the Almighty has filled with every
necessary to make us a great maritime people; by the extent of our
coasts and those immense rivers, which serve at once to open a
communication with our interior country, and to teach us the arts of
navigation; by those vast fisheries, which, affording an inexhaustible
mine of wealth and a cradle of industry, breed hardy mariners, inured to
danger and fatigue; finally, by the unconquerable spirit of freemen,
deeply interested in the preservation of a government which secures to
them the blessings of liberty and exalts the dignity of mankind;--by all
these, I expect a full and lasting defence against any and every part of
the earth; while the great advantages to be derived from a friendly
intercourse with this country almost render the means of defence
unnecessary, from the great improbability of being attacked. So far,
peace seems to smile upon our future independence. But that this fair
goddess will equally crown our union with Great Britain, my fondest
hopes cannot lead me to suppose. Every war in which she is engaged must
necessarily involve us in its detestable consequences; whilst, weak and
unarmed, we have no shield of defence, unless such as she may please
(for her own sake) to afford, or else the pity of her enemies and the
insignificance of slaves beneath the attention of a generous foe."[425]
In 1778, Mr. Morris was chosen a delegate to the Continental Congress
from the State of New York. His reputation for talent, zeal, activity,
and singular capacity for business, had preceded him. On the very day
when he presented his credentials, he was placed upon a committee to
proceed to Valley Forge, to confer with General Washington on the
measures necessary for a reorganization of the army. He remained in
Congress for two years, discharging, with great ability and high
patriotism, the most important functions, and subjected all the while to
the most unjust popular suspicions of his fidelity to the cause of the
country. Few of all the prominent men of the Revolution sacrificed or
suffered more than Gouverneur Morris. The fact that all the other
members of his family adhered to the royalist side, and an ineffectual
effort which he once made to visit his mother, at his ancestral home,
then within the British lines, gave his enemies the means of inflicting
upon him a deep injury in the popular estimation. He was not re-elected
to Congress; but short as his career in that body was, it was filled
with services inferior to those of none of his associates.
Before he left Congress, in February, 1779, he made--as chairman of a
committee to whom certain communications from the French minister in the
United States were referred--a report which became the basis of the
peace that afterwards followed; and when the principles on which the
peace was to be negotiated had been settled, he drew the instructions to
the commissioners, and they were unanimously adopted without
change.[426]
On leaving Congress, Mr. Morris took up his residence in Philadelphia,
and resumed the practice of the law. His remarkable talent for business,
however, and his intimate knowledge of financial subjects, led to his
appointment as Assistant Financier with Robert Morris. In this capacity,
he suggested the idea of the decimal notation, which was afterwards made
the basis of the coinage of the United States.[427]
Having been appointed one of the delegates from the State of
Pennsylvania to the Convention for forming the Constitution of the
United States, Mr. Morris attended the whole session, with the exception
of a few days in June, and entered into its business with his accustomed
ardor. To remove impediments, obviate objections, and conciliate jarring
opinions, he exerted all his fine faculties, and employed his remarkable
eloquence. But he is chiefly to be remembered, in connection with the
Constitution, as the author of its text. To his pen belongs the merit of
that clear and finished style,--that _lucidus ordo_,--that admirable
perspicuity, which have so much diminished the labors and hazards of
interpretation for all future ages.[428]
The character of Gouverneur Morris was balanced by many admirable
qualities. His self-possession was so complete in all circumstances,
that he is said to have declared, that he never knew the sensation of
fear, inferiority, or embarrassment, in his intercourse with men.
Undoubtedly, his self-confidence amounted sometimes to boldness and
presumption; but we have it on no less an authority than Mr. Madison's,
that he added to it a candid surrender of his opinions, when the lights
of discussion satisfied him that they had been too hastily formed.[429]
He was a man of genius, fond of society and pleasure, but capable of
prodigious exertion and industry, and possessed of great powers of
eloquence.
He loved to indulge in speculations on the future condition of the
country, and often foresaw results which gave him patience under the
existing state of things. In 1784, writing to Mr. Jay, at a time when
the clashing commercial regulations of the States seemed about to put an
end to the Union, he said: "True it is, that the general government
wants energy, and equally true it is, that this want will eventually be
supplied. A national spirit is the natural result of national existence,
and although some of the present generation may feel colonial
oppositions of opinion, yet this generation will die away and give place
to a race of Americans."[430]
He was himself, at all times, an American, and never more so than during
the discussions of the Convention. Appealing to his colleagues to extend
their views beyond the narrow limits of place whence they derived their
political origin, he declared, with his characteristic energy and point,
that State attachments and State importance had been the bane of this
country. "We cannot annihilate," said he, "but we may perhaps take out
the teeth of the serpents."[431]
In truth, the circumstances of his life had prevented him from feeling
those strong local attachments which he considered the great impediments
to the national prosperity. Born in one State, he had then resided for
seven years in another, from whose inhabitants he had received at least
equal marks of confidence with those that had been bestowed upon him by
the people among whom he first entered public life.
In his political opinions, he probably went farther in opposition to
democratic tendencies than any other person in the Convention. He was in
favor of an executive during good behavior, of a Senate for life, and of
a freehold qualification for electors of representatives. In several
other respects, the Constitution, as actually framed, was distasteful to
him; but, like many of the other eminent men who doubted its theoretical
or practical wisdom, he determined at once to abide by the voice of the
majority. He saw that, as soon as the plan should go forth, all other
considerations ought to be laid aside, and the great question ought to
be, Shall there be a national government or not? He acknowledged that
the alternatives were, the adoption of the system proposed, or a general
anarchy;--and before this single and fearful issue all questions of
individual opinion or preference sank into insignificance.[432] It is a
proof both of his sincerity and of the estimate in which his abilities
were held, that, when this great issue was presented to the people, he
was invited by Hamilton to become one of the writers of the
Federalist.[433] It is not known why he did not embrace the opportunity
of connecting himself with that celebrated publication; but his
correspondence shows that it was from no want of interest in the result.
He took pains to give to Washington his decided testimony, from personal
observation, that the idea of his refusing the Presidency would, if it
prevailed, be fatal to the Constitution in many parts of the
country.[434]
Mr. Morris filled two important public stations, after the adoption of
the Constitution. He was the first Minister to France appointed by
General Washington, and filled that office from May, 1792, until August,
1794. In February, 1800, he was chosen by the legislature of New York to
supply a vacancy in the Senate of the United States, which he filled
until the 4th of March, 1803. He died at Morrisania on the 6th of
November, 1818. "Let us forget party," said he, "and think of our
country, which embraces all parties."[435]
FOOTNOTES:
[425] Sparks's Life of G. Morris, I. 103. The florid and declamatory
style of this speech belongs to the period and to the youth of the
speaker. The breadth of its views and its vigor of thought display the
characteristics which belonged to him through life. He had a prophetic
insight of the future resources of this country, and made many
remarkable predictions of its greatness. His biographer has claimed for
him the suggestion of the plan for uniting the waters of Lake Erie with
those of the Hudson, and upon very strong evidence.
[426] See the Report and the debates thereon, Secret Journals, II. 132
et seq.
[427] In January, 1782, the Financier made a report, which was
officially signed by him, but which Mr. Jefferson says was prepared by
his Assistant, Gouverneur Morris. It embraced an elaborate statement of
the denominations and comparative value of the foreign coins in
circulation in the different States, and proposed the adoption of a
money unit and a system of decimal notation for a new coinage. The unit
suggested was such a portion of pure silver as would be a common measure
of the penny of every State, without leaving a fraction. This common
divisor Mr. Morris found to be one 1440th of a dollar, or one 1600th of
the crown sterling. The value of a dollar was therefore to be expressed
by 1,440 units, and that of a crown by 1,600, each unit containing a
quarter of a grain of fine silver. Nothing, however, was done, until
1784, when Mr. Jefferson, being in Congress, took up the subject. He
approved of Mr. Morris's general views, and his method of decimal
notation, but objected to his unit as too minute for ordinary use. Mr.
Jefferson proposed the dollar as the unit of account and payment, and
that its divisions and subdivisions should be in the decimal ratio. This
plan was adopted in August, 1785, and in 1786 the names and characters
of the coins were determined. The ordinance establishing the coinage was
passed August 8, 1786, and that establishing the mint, on the 16th of
October, in the same year. (Jefferson's Autobiography, Works, I. 52-54.
Life of Gouverneur Morris, I. 273. Journals of Congress, XI. 179, 254.)
[428] The materials for the final preparation of the instrument,
consisting of a reported draft in detail and the various resolutions
which had been adopted, were placed in the hands of a committee of
revision, of which William Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, was the
chairman; the other members being Messrs. Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris,
Madison, and King. The chairman committed the work to Mr. Morris, and
the Constitution, as adopted, was prepared by him. (See Mr. Madison's
letter to Mr. Sparks, Life of Gouverneur Morris, I. 284. Madison's
Debates, Elliot, V. 530.)
[429] Life of Morris, I. 284-286.
[430] Ibid. 266.
[431] Madison, Elliot, V. 276, 277.
[432] Madison, Elliot, V. 556.
[433] Life, I. 287.
[434] Ibid. 288-290.
[435] Ibid. 517.