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The one-legged author of We the People
Playboy and financier
Morris was one of the revolution's financial saviors, the man who coined America's use of dollars and cents. He was also a towering, handsome bon vivant, and losing his leg in 1780 did nothing to slow his love life. John Jay wrote to their friend Robert Morris that he was almost tempted to wish Gouverneur had lost something else.
In 1784, Alexander Hamilton dared him to give George Washington a friendly slap on the back. Morris actually did it. Dead silence followed.
Shaping the convention
At the convention, it was Morris who dreamed up the way to keep delegates from fighting over every detail of the Virginia Plan at once: get them to agree on three broad resolutions first. A union of states that is merely federal was not enough, no treaty among sovereignties would do, and a national government with a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary ought to be established. On that last one, six states voted aye, Connecticut voted no, and New York split.
On September 8, a Committee of Style was appointed to write the final draft, and Morris ended up responsible for much of the wording. No one spoke more at the convention than he did.
How did Morris change the Preamble's opening?
An earlier draft of the Preamble, from the Committee of Detail, began by listing the states by name. The Committee of Style replaced that with We the People of the United States. A list of states made little sense when no one knew how many would ratify the document. The new wording also rested the Constitution's authority on the people instead of on the state governments.
Who sat on the Committee of Style?
The committee had five members: William Samuel Johnson, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and Rufus King. Johnson served as chairman. Morris did most of the actual drafting, working from the resolutions the convention had already approved. The committee turned in its final draft on September 12, 1787.
How did Morris shape American money?
Gouverneur Morris worked as assistant to the Confederation's superintendent of finance, Robert Morris, who was not a relative. He proposed a decimal currency system based on the Spanish dollar. Thomas Jefferson later reworked the idea into the dollar divided into 100 cents. Congress adopted a decimal system with the Coinage Act of 1792.
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