Gouverneur Morris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gouverneur Morris (January 31, 1752 – November 6, 1816) was an American statesman and a native of New York who represented Pennsylvania in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He was also an author of large sections of the Constitution of the United States and one of its "signers". He is widely credited as the author of the document's preamble: "We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union ... " and has been called the 'Penman of the Constitution.'[1] In an era when most Americans thought of themselves as citizens of their respective states, Morris advanced the idea of being a citizen of a single union of states.[2]
A gifted scholar, Morris enrolled at King's College (now Columbia University) at age twelve, in 1764. He graduated in 1768 and received a master's degree in 1771.
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[edit] Family and legacy
At the age of 57, he married Anne Cary ("Nancy") Randolph, who was the sister of Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., husband of Thomas Jefferson's daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph.
He died at the family estate, Morrisania, and he is buried at St. Ann's Episcopal Church in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. Morris and his wife had a son, Gouverneur Jr., who eventually became a railroad executive.
Morris also established himself as an important landowner in northern New York, where the Town of Gouverneur and Village of Gouverneur in St. Lawrence County are named for him.
Morris's half-brother, Lewis Morris (1726-1798), was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Another half-brother, Staats Long Morris, was a loyalist and major-general in the British army during the American Revolution. His nephew, Lewis Richard Morris, served in the Vermont legislature and in the United States Congress. His grandnephew was William M. Meredith, United States Secretary of the Treasury under Zachary Taylor. Morris's great-grandson, also named Gouverneur (1876-1953), was an author of pulp novels and short stories during the early-twentieth century. (Several of his works were adapted into films, including the famous Lon Chaney, Sr. film, The Penalty.)[3][4]
In 1943, a United States liberty ship named the SS Gouverneur Morris was launched. She was scrapped in 1974.
[edit] References
- ^ [1] Documents from the Constitutional Convention and the Continental Congress at the Library of Congress
- ^ "Gouverneur Morris". http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/RevWar/ss/morrisg.htm. Retrieved 2009-06-02.
- ^ Browse By Author: M - Project Gutenberg
- ^ Gouverneur Morris
[edit] Sources
- Brookhiser, Richard (2003). Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris, the Rake Who Wrote the Constitution. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-2379-9.
- Crawford, Alan Pell (2000). Unwise Passions: A True Story of a Remarkable Woman—and the First Great Scandal of Eighteenth-century America. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-83474-X. (A biography of Morris's wife.)
- Fresia, Jerry (1988). Toward an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution & Other Illusions. Cambridge: South End Press.
- Miller, Melanie Randolph, Envoy to the Terror: Gouverneur Morris and the French Revolution (Potomac Books, 2005)
- The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, Minister of the United States to France; Member of the Constitutional Convention, ed. Anne Cary Morris (1888). 2 vols. online version
- Swiggert, Howard (1952). The Extraordinary Mr. Morris. New York: Doubleday & Co..
[edit] External links
- U.S. Army Biography
- Gouverneur Morris at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
- Mintz, Max, Gouverneur Morris, George Washington's War Hawk, Virginia Quarterly Review, Autumn 2003.
- Gouverneur Morris Letters
- Gouverneur Morris,Jr. Papers,1853-1879New-York Historical Society
| Diplomatic posts | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by William Short |
U.S. Minister Plenipotentiary to France 1792 – 1794 |
Succeeded by James Monroe |
| United States Senate | ||
| Preceded by James Watson |
United States Senator (Class 1) from New York 1800 – 1803 Served alongside: John Armstrong, Jr., De Witt Clinton |
Succeeded by Theodorus Bailey |
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