MORRIS, ROBERT (1734–1806)

The English-born merchant and patriot Robert Morris was an early supporter of colonial rights, opposing the Stamp Act and signing the Non-Importation Agreement in 1765. As a member of the Second Continental Congress (1776–1788), Morris voted against the declaration of independence because it was premature; but he later signed the Declaration as well as the articles of confederation. He earned the nickname "Financier of the Revolution" because of his role in raising money to support the Army. In 1781, Congress chose him to be superintendent of finance. While serving in that capacity he organized the Bank of North America, chartered by Congress as a device for borrowing money to pay the costs of the new government. In 1783, he resigned the "insupportable situation" of superintendent of finance, giving as his reason that "to increase our debts while the prospect of paying them diminishes does not consist with my ideas of integrity."

He was a member of the Pennsylvania delegation to the constitutional convention of 1787. There he nominated george washington to be presiding officer, but otherwise, despite his reputation in Pennsylvania politics as a speaker who "bears down all before him," he remained silent throughout the debates. He was a strong nationalist, and desired a Senate comprising men of great and established property appointed for life. Morris signed the Constitution, and, in a letter, recommended it as "the subject of infinite investigation, disputation, and declamation," but still the work not of angels or devils but of "plain, honest men."

Morris and his friends supported the Constitution not least because it promised economic stability, security of contracts, and relief from the harassment of the Bank of North America by the state governments. But Morris's support for ratification seems only to have increased the fervor of some anti-Federalists.

Morris would have been a leading candidate to become the first secretary of the treasury, but he did not want the post. Instead, in 1789, he was elected to the United States senate, where he became a leader of the federalist faction and a key ally of alexander hamilton in the matter of the assumption of state debts.

Morris retired from public life in 1795, and devoted his time to the management of his financial affairs, including his speculation in western lands. That speculation brought him, in 1797, to financial ruin and to three and one-half years in debtors' prison.

Dennis J. Mahoney
(1986)