The Forgotten Founding Father

Today marks the 247^th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence at the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, and although the last few years have been rocky ones, the American Experiment has held strong, although there are those who would debate that final clause.

Here’s a brief 4^th of July quiz for you (and the correct answers, in this author’s opinion):

Which two founding fathers died on July 4, 1826? (Jefferson and Adams)

Who penned the Declaration of Independence? (Jefferson)

Who was the Father of Our Nation? (Washington)

Does the phrase “one nation under God” belong in the Pledge of Allegiance? (absolutely)

What is the most patriotic American song, aside from the National Anthem? (Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA”)

But here’s a fact that the average Joe or Jane may not know. Although James Madison is credited with writing the Constitution because so many of his ideas from the Virginia Plan were incorporated into the final document, the Constitution itself was written by a Pennsylvania delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention (originally from New York) by the name of Gouverneur Morris.

In his article “The Forgotten Founding Father,” published in City Journal in 2002, author Richard Brookhiser explains that although Morris worked mostly from preexisting material, he did it very well. (All quotations in this commentary, unless otherwise noted, are from Brookhiser’s article.)

Even James Madison gave a creative nod to Morris: “The finish given to the style and arrangement of the Constitution fairly belongs to the pen of Mr. Morris. A better choice could not have been made.” So while James Madison gets the credit for being the Father of the Constitution, Morris can at the very least be considered the Penman of the Constitution (although Jacob Shallus is the man who actually hand wrote the Constitution which is on display at the National Archives Building in Washington).

While Gouverneur Morris may have borrowed from preexisting material for the Constitution, he is given full credit for writing the Preamble. Chances are that your American history teacher and/or Civics teacher made you memorize these famous 52 words:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Now that you have a new fact or two in your American history repertoire, let me give you a brief biography of “the most famous forgotten man in New York.”

Morris was born to a wealthy family, educated at Kings College (now Columbia) and he became a lawyer. He was a New York delegate to the 1778 Continental Congress and he was undeniably the most vocal of the Founders—he spoke at the convention a total of 173 times, strongly supporting religious freedom and strongly condemning slavery.

He assisted Robert Morris (no relation) in drafting a blueprint for the national bank. He was appointed the United States Minister to France, just as France was entering into the “Reign of Terror” of its own revolution. Returning from Europe, he was elected Senator from New York. After he retired from politics, he led the effort to create the Erie Canal.

Morris was also known for his sense of humor, supposedly playing a prank on George Washington at the Constitutional Convention. He was tall, rich, and handsome, and a perpetual ladies’ man, even though he wasn’t without his own afflictions.

At age 14, his right arm was severely disfigured by an upset kettle of boiling water, and when he was 28, his left foot was caught in the spokes of a carriage wheel, resulting in the loss of his leg below the knee. But not even a peg leg slowed him down.

Morris thoroughly documented his love affairs in his diary. His friends Robert Livingston and John Jay teased him about his frequent romantic escapades, and after Morris lost his leg, Jay wrote that “it might have been better he had lost something else.” He eventually married at age 57 to a woman 22 years his junior.

When I read about the lives of our Founding Fathers, I am amazed at what they accomplished in each of their lives in a time with so few of the amenities that we take for granted today existed—world-class healthcare, an interstate system and the vehicles that we drive, telecommunications, air travel, and air conditioning, to name a few.

Most of us have at least a passing knowledge of the accomplishments of the “greats”—Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Adams, Madison—and even Alexander Hamilton has his own Broadway play. But the forgotten fathers deserve to be remembered, too. By all means, read more about Gouverneur Morris. What I’ve written here is only a very brief synopsis of his remarkable life.

The well-known Founding Fathers—Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin—taught us how to live as citizens of a free country, but Gouverneur Morris showed us “how to enjoy its blessings and bear its hurts with good spirit and humanity.”

Today, over two centuries later, the Penman of the Constitution and the Author of the Preamble would be proud to know that his work lives on, and that the writers on this website honor the documents that established the most remarkable country in the world. On this day, the 247^th birthday of these United States, perhaps now more than ever, may God Bless the USA.