Gouverneur Morris was an American statesman, a Founding Father of the United States, and a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.
36 Facts About Gouverneur Morris
2.
Gouverneur Morris wrote the Preamble to the United States Constitution and has been called the "Penman of the Constitution".
3.
Gouverneur Morris was one of the most outspoken opponents of slavery among those who were present at the Constitutional Congress.
4.
Gouverneur Morris represented New York in the United States Senate from 1800 to 1803.
5.
Gouverneur Morris was born into a wealthy landowning family in what is New York City.
6.
Gouverneur Morris was elected to the New York Provincial Congress before serving in the Continental Congress.
7.
Gouverneur Morris represented Pennsylvania at the 1787 Constitutional Convention in which he advocated a strong central government.
8.
Gouverneur Morris served on the committee that wrote the final draft of the United States Constitution.
9.
Gouverneur Morris criticized the French Revolution and the execution of Marie Antoinette.
10.
Gouverneur Morris returned to the United States in 1798 and won election to the Senate in 1800.
11.
Gouverneur Morris's half-brother Lewis Gouverneur Morris was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
12.
Gouverneur Morris's grandnephew was William M Meredith, who was United States Secretary of the Treasury under Zachary Taylor.
13.
Gouverneur Morris's father, Lewis Gouverneur Morris, was a wealthy landowner and judge.
14.
Gouverneur Morris was born on the family estate, Morrisania, on the north side of the Harlem River, which was then in Westchester County but is part of the Bronx.
15.
Gouverneur Morris graduated in 1768 and received a master's degree in 1771.
16.
Gouverneur Morris studied law with Judge William Smith and attained admission to the bar in 1775.
17.
Gouverneur Morris was selected to a committee in charge of coordinating reforms of the military with George Washington.
18.
Gouverneur Morris signed the Articles of Confederation in 1778 and was its youngest signer.
19.
Gouverneur Morris cast the decisive tie-breaking vote in favor of keeping Washington as Commander-in-Chief.
20.
In 1780, Gouverneur Morris had a carriage accident in Philadelphia, and his left leg was amputated below the knee.
21.
Gouverneur Morris was selected as a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787.
22.
Gouverneur Morris was elected to serve on the Committee of Style and Arrangement, a committee of five, which drafted the final language of the proposed constitution.
23.
Gouverneur Morris opposed admitting new western states on an equal basis with the existing eastern states for fear that the interior wilderness could not furnish "enlightened" national statesmen.
24.
Jon Elster has suggested that Gouverneur Morris's attempt to limit the future power of the West was a strategic move designed to limit the power of slaveholding states because Gouverneur Morris believed that slavery would predominate in new Western states.
25.
Gouverneur Morris was one of the few delegates at the Philadelphia Convention who spoke openly against domestic slavery.
26.
Gouverneur Morris went to France on business in 1789 and served as Minister Plenipotentiary to France from 1792 to 1794.
27.
Gouverneur Morris returned to the United States in 1798 and was elected in April 1800, as a Federalist, to the US Senate, filling the vacancy caused by the resignation of James Watson.
28.
Gouverneur Morris served from May 3,1800 to March 3,1803 and was defeated for re-election in February 1803.
29.
Gouverneur Morris was one of the three men who drew up the Commissioners' Plan of 1811, which laid out the Manhattan street grid.
30.
Gouverneur Morris even pushed for secession to create a separate New York-New England Confederation because he saw the war as a result of slaveholders, who wanted to expand their territory.
31.
Gouverneur Morris was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1814.
32.
Until he married late in life, Gouverneur Morris's diary tells of a series of affairs.
33.
Gouverneur Morris's lovers included the French novelist Adelaide Filleul and the American poet and novelist Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton.
34.
Gouverneur Morris died on November 6,1816, after he had caused himself internal injuries and an infection while using a piece of whalebone as a catheter in an attempt to clear a blockage in his urinary tract.
35.
Gouverneur Morris died at the family estate, Morrisania, and was buried at St Ann's Church in The Bronx.
36.
Morris's great-grandson, named Gouverneur Morris, was an author of pulp novels and short stories in the early 20th century.