Gouverneur Morris

“ On the eighteenth of June he left for the Potomac; and at Baltimore he wrote a brief letter to Gouverneur Morris, assuring him of his undiminished personal friendship, notwithstanding his recall. At Mount Vernon he wrote another, in which Washington evinced his consciousness that vigilant eyes were upon all his public movements, and not with friendly intent. “The affairs of this country,” he said to Morris ironically, “can not go wrong; there are so many watchful guardians of them, and such infallible guides, that no one is at a loss for a director at every turn.” ”

“ Gouverneur Morris, with his accustomed ardor, went further still, and insisted on re-opening the subject of representation, now that the other features of the system were to be made to favor the increase of slaves, and to throw the burdens of maintaining the government chiefly upon the Northern States. It was idle, he declared, to say that direct taxation might be levied upon the slaveholding States in proportion to their representative population: for the general government could never stretch out its hand, and put it directly into the pockets of the people, over so vast a country. ”

“ Gouverneur Morris, "I experienced great satisfaction in seeing the good effects of the general government in that part of the Union. The people at large have felt the security which it gives, and the equal justice which it administers to them. The farmer, the merchant, and the mechanic have seen their several interests attended to, and from thence they unite in placing a confidence in their representatives, as well as in those in whose hands the execution of the laws is placed. Industry has there taken place of idleness, and economy of dissipation. ”

“ Gouverneur Morris, that if the large states were to be split to pieces without their consent, their representatives here would take their leave. If the small states are to be required to guaranty them in this manner, it will be found that the representatives of other states will, with equal firmness, take their leave of the Constitution on the table. ”

“ There was no clearer-headed man in the convention than Gouverneur Morris; yet he said that he was "compelled to declare himself reduced to the dilemma of doing injustice to the Southern States or to human nature, and he must do it to the former." C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina declared that he was "alarmed" at such an avowal as that. Yet had the question been one of counting three fifths of the Northern ships in the enumeration of population, Morris would have discovered no "dilemma," and Pinckney nothing to be "alarmed" at. ”

“ It was pressed by Gouverneur Morris and favored by Robert Morris and others from Pennsylvania, that the large States should unite in firmly refusing to the small States an equal vote, as unreasonable, and as enabling the small States to negative every good system of Government, which must in the nature of things, be founded on a violation of that equality. ”

“ When the Constitution was before the people for adoption, and the result was in doubt, Gouverneur Morris wrote to Washington as follows:
“I have observed that your name to the Constitution has been of infinite service. Indeed, I am convinced that if you had not attended the Convention, and the same paper had been handed out to the world, it would 36have met with a colder reception, with fewer and weaker advocates, and with more and more strenuous opponents. As it is, should the idea prevail that you will not accept the Presidency, it will prove fatal in many parts. ”

“ Jared Sparks, hitherto Morris's sole biographer, wrote innumerable volumes on American history, many of which are still very valuable, and some of them almost indispensable, to the student. The value, however, comes wholly from the matter; Mr. Sparks is not only a very voluminous writer, but he is also a quite abnormally dull one. His "Life of Gouverneur Morris" is typical of most of his work. [Pg vi] He collected with great industry facts about Mr. Morris, and edited a large number of his letters and state papers, with numerous selections, not always well chosen, from his Diary. ”

“ He had come to America as a young man just when the troubles with England were beginning and by sheer ability had attained a position of prominence. Several times a member of Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, he was now regarded as one of the ablest lawyers in the United States. A more brilliant member of the Pennsylvania delegation, and one of the most brilliant of the Convention, was Gouverneur Morris, who shone by his cleverness and quick wit as well as by his wonderful command of language. ”

“ Will of Gouverneur Morris
Gouverneur Morris, the celebrated orator and statesman of New York, died in 1816. He had great affection for his wife, whom he married late in life. This lady was Miss Ann Randolph, a cousin of John Randolph of Roanoke, and was much younger than himself; their married life was one of great happiness. He bequeathed to her a very handsome income and then provided that in case she remarried the income should be doubled. It must be noted that such cases are rare. ”

“ When, on January 31, 1752, Gouverneur Morris was born in the family manor-house at Morrisania, on the lands where his forefathers had dwelt for three generations, New York colony contained only some eighty thousand inhabitants, of whom twelve thousand were blacks. New York city was a thriving little trading town, whose people in summer suffered much from the mosquitoes that came back with the cows when they were driven home at nightfall for milking ”

“ He made the final draft of the United States Constitution; he first outlined our present system of national coinage; he originated and got under way the plan for the Erie Canal; as minister to France he successfully performed the most difficult task ever allotted to an American representative at a foreign capital. With all his faults, there are few men of his generation to whom the country owes more than to Gouverneur Morris. ”

“ In such conditions of society morbid excitement was natural. Many examples in all periods of history could be found to illustrate every stage of a mania so common. The excitement of the time was not confined to New England. A typical American man-of-the-world was Gouverneur Morris. Cool, easy-tempered, incredulous, with convictions chiefly practical, and illusions largely rhetorical, Morris delivered an oration on the overthrow of Napoleon to a New York audience, June 29, 1814.
[20]
“And thou too, Democracy! ”

“ The fact is, that Gouverneur Morris, a highflying monarchy man, shutting his eyes and his faith to every fact against his wishes, and believing every thing he desires to be true, has kept the President’s mind constantly poisoned with his forebodings. That the President wishes the revolution may be established, I believe from several indications. ”

“ Gouverneur Morris, who strenuously maintained the necessity for guarding the interests of the Atlantic against those of the Western States, insisted that the combined principles of numbers and wealth gave a sufficient rule for the legislature; that it was a rule which they could execute; and that it would avoid the necessity of a distinct and special admission of the slaves into the census,—an idea which he was sure the people of Pennsylvania would reject. Mr. ”

“ He observed, that he mixed with these people, and found it to be the true policy. Although this is not my opinion, yet we must be governed by the advice of the majority.
The oration (by Gouverneur Morris) has displeased many republicans of the first water. Governor Morgan Lewis speaks of the proceedings openly as disgraceful, illiberal, and ungentlemanly. In short, a little more noise on their side, and a little further magnanimity on ours, is all that is necessary. In all this bustle, judicious men see nothing but the workings of the meanest passions. ”

“ On the other side, the Southern States are not to be restrained from importing fresh supplies of wretched Africans, at once to increase the danger of attack and the difficulty of defence; nay, they are to be encouraged to it by an assurance of having their votes in the National Government increased in proportion, and, at the same time, are to have their slaves and their exports exempt from all contributions to the public service." Gouverneur Morris moved to make the free population alone the basis of representation. ”

“ Jay. In a letter to his lady, dated the 20th of April, the judge says—"Yesterday the Senate approved of the nomination by a great majority. Mr. Burr was among the few who opposed it."
About this period the democratic party were highly incensed against the president for continuing Gouverneur Morris as a minister to the French Republic. The Executive Provisory Council had requested his recall. He was considered a monarchist, and hostile to the revolution. Many of the opposition senators had spoken with great freedom of the policy of General Washington in this particular. ”

“ In the course of the war, persons of small claims to notice or regard obtained seats in Congress. By force of party disruptions, as was bitterly remarked by one of the leaders, men were brought into the management of affairs "who might have lived till the millennium in silent obscurity had they depended upon their mental qualifications." Gouverneur Morris was, no doubt, one of the shrewdest observers of current events in his day, and the purity of the patriotism of John Jay entitled him to stand by the side of Washington. ”

“ The other members were by no means equally prompt, and a week elapsed before a bare quorum was obtained and the convention enabled to organize. In this interval of waiting there appears to have been some informal discussion among the members present, between those who favored an entirely new Constitution and those who timidly desired only half-way measures. On one of these occasions Washington is reported by Gouverneur Morris, in a eulogy delivered twelve years later, to have said: "It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. ”

“ But, then, Morris had had money transactions with the Lafayettes. Morris believed that no man ever existed who controlled himself so well as Washington. Shall we put the "Diary" just after the "Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin," not far from Beveridge's "Marshall" and at least on the same shelf with the perennial Boswell?
I read the confessions of Cardinal de Retz and of Gouverneur Morris many times with a dip now and then, by way of a change, into the Autobiography of Anthony Trollope. This is rather a change from the kickshaws of France to the roast [Pg 170] beef of old England. ”

“ Washington had appointed as his successor James Monroe, who, as senator, had uniformly opposed the measures of the administration. Such an act of magnanimity in these times would excite considerable surprise.
On the 25th of June (1794) , after his arrival at Mount Vernon, Washington again writes to Gouverneur Morris, who still retained his warm friendship and confidence. Speaking of his political course, he says: "My primary objects, to which I have steadily adhered, have been to preserve the country in peace if I can, and to be prepared for war if I cannot ”

“ For half a century afterwards the people clung to their absurd shillings and sixpences, the government itself, in its post-office transactions, being obliged to recognize the obsolete terms in vogue in certain localities. Some curious pieces circulated freely up to the time of the Civil War. Still, Jefferson's plan worked admirably in the end.
All the time he was working so hard at the finances, Morris nevertheless continued to enjoy himself to the full in the society of Philadelphia. Imperious, light-hearted, good-looking, well-dressed, he ranked as a wit among men, as a beau among women. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Emasculated sentimentalists may try to strike from the national dictionary the word treason; but until that is done, Jefferson Davis must be deemed guilty thereof.
There are, however, very few of our statesmen whose characters can be painted in simple, uniform colors, like Washington and Lincoln on the one hand, or Burr and Davis on the other. Nor is Morris one of these few. His place is alongside of men like Madison, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry, who did the nation great service at times, but each of whom, at some one or two critical junctures, ranged himself with the forces of disorder. ”

“ He returned to New York in 1798, resumed the practice of his profession, re-entered politics, and sat in the United States Senate as a Federalist from 1800 to 1803. As early as 1801 Morris became interested in projects for improving the communication between the Hudson river and Lake Erie, and from 1810 to 1816 he was chairman of the board of canal commissioners, which after exploring the country prepared plans for the Erie Canal. ”

“ The tories included those of the gentry who were devoted to aristocratic principles; the large class of timid and prosperous people (like the Pennsylvania Quakers) ; the many who feared above all things disorder; also the very lowest sections of the community, the lazy, thriftless, and vicious, who hated their progressive neighbors, as in the Carolinas; and finally the men who were really principled in favor of a kingly government.
Morris was at first no more sure of his soundings than were the rest of his companions. ”