Robert Morris

An American merchant, financial expert, land speculator, and banker, Robert Morris (1734-1806) performed a valuable service for the new republic as superintendent of finance for the Continental Congress.

Robert Morris was born on Jan. 31, 1734, in Liverpool, England. At the age of 13 he was taken to America by his father, a tobacco agent who settled in Maryland. Several years later Morris was sent to Philadelphia as an apprentice to the merchant Charles Willing. Morris proved adept, and eventually he became a full partner in Willing and Morris, a firm with important connections abroad. With Thomas Willing, Morris invested in ships and land on a large scale and conducted far-flung operations that began to yield high profits. His magnificent Philadelphia town house was a social center run by his wife, Mary White, whom he had married in 1769.

Entry into Politics

Essentially a political conservative, Morris crept toward an open break with England while more headstrong Americans were running. On the Pennsylvania delegation to the Continental Congress, Morris opposed independence but later signed the Declaration of Independence. He served in Congress from 1775 to 1778 and sat intermittently in the Pennsylvania Assembly from 1775 to 1781. His capacity for work, attention to detail, and commitment to the American cause were impressive.

At the same time, Morris used his political power for personal gain. As chairman of the secret congressional Committee of Trade, he diverted large sums for his own firm's use, and at least $80,000 was never accounted for. His agents transported private cargoes in naval vessels and traded on their own account for profits while their zeal for public business often lagged.

Morris's attitude in these ventures was explained in a letter to one partner, Silas Deane: "I shall continue to discharge my duty faithfully to the Public and pursue my Private Fortune by all such honorable and fair means as the time will admit of." Public criticism of these activities led to a congressional investigation in 1779. Morris's integrity was upheld by the committee's report.

Morris therefore suffered little inconvenience from the war. His abilities so impressed other congressmen that in May 1781 they despairingly dumped the chaotic and penniless Treasury Office in Morris's lap. His firmness and bold measures as superintendent of finance restored confidence, and aided mainly by foreign loans and the American victory at Yorktown, Va., Morris was able to effect much-needed reforms in the tottering bureaucratic structure. His improved system encompassed naval supplies, public credit, military contracts, and army garrisons. Morris founded the Bank of North America, partly with public money, and issued bank notes to maintain cash payments on government business.

Unquestionably, Morris managed public finances superbly and under the most trying conditions. When he left office in 1784, the Treasury had $20,000. Morris was convinced that the new nation could survive only with a centralized financial system. He urged the sound-money faction to press for a Federal revenue program and a consolidated national debt that would undergird the total economy. Assumption of the wartime debt by the national government was a key part of his program.

Return to Business

Morris returned to the business world, signed a tobacco-supply contract with the French monopoly, ventured into the growing China trade, and began reckless purchases of land. He was elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, where he apparently never entered the debates but probably spoke out in private sessions. He must have supported plans to build a strong navy and create a powerful central government. After ratification of the Constitution, Morris was elected a senator from Pennsylvania. He worked with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton on details of the first revenue act and the bill for assumption of state debts.

Morris retired from the Senate in 1795, but his enemies sniped away at his failure to settle wartime accounts with the government. In 1796 Morris gave bonds for $93,312 to clear his ledger of these debts. At that time he was widely regarded as the richest American alive. Behind the facade of immense land holdings, however, there was a dwindling supply of cash.

Imprudently, Morris joined with James Greenleaf and John Nicholson in grandiose schemes for developing the newly designated capital at Washington, buying over 7,000 lots. They also acquired millions of acres beyond the Ohio River, in western New York, and in several southern states. With his partners, Morris combined all his holdings so that more than 6 million acres of land seemed sufficient collateral for all his ventures. But rumors of his impending ruin grew, and after a London bank failure Morris was drained of £124,000. He was never able to recover his financial equilibrium. A joint-stock company scheme failed; Morris was land-rich but headed for bankruptcy. Hounded by bill collectors and process servers, he retreated to a country home.

In February 1798 Morris was taken to a Philadelphia debtors' prison and jailed until a reform bankruptcy act permitted his release in August 1801. Court records showed that he owed $3 million. A thoroughly humbled man, Morris lived thereafter on the charity of friends and died on May 8, 1806.

Further Reading

A project to gather and publish Morris's papers is under way, guided by E. James Ferguson. The standard biographies are William Graham Sumner, The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution (1891), and Ellis P. Oberholtzer, Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier (1903). Clarence L. Ver Steeg, Robert Morris (1954), and E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776-1790 (1961), are analytical works of unusual merit. The sketch of Morris in Howard Swiggett, The Forgotten Leaders of the Revolution (1955), challenges some past assumptions.

Additional Sources

Chernow, Barbara Ann, Robert Morris, land speculator, 1790-1801, New York: Arno Press, 1978, 1974.

Wagner, Frederick, Robert Morris, audacious patriot, New York: Dodd, Mead, c 1976. □

Robert Morris 1734–1806, American merchant, known as the "financier of the American Revolution," and signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Liverpool, England. Morris emigrated to America in 1747 and was soon apprenticed to the merchant Charles Willing in Philadelphia. He showed an unusual aptitude for business and by 1754 became a partner in the firm with the son, Thomas Willing, after the elder Willing's death. He opposed British restrictions prior to the Revolution and served (1775–78) as a member of the Continental Congress. Morris voted against the original motion for independence in July, 1776, as premature, but signed the declaration in August. A member of various committees in Congress, Morris was particularly important in obtaining munitions and other supplies and in borrowing money to finance George Washington's army. Although Morris's vast mercantile interests profited greatly from his congressional activities, both he and his firm were acquitted by Congress of charges of fraud. After leaving Congress, Morris expanded his mercantile and investment operations independently of Willing and by 1781 was almost universally acknowledged as the most prominent merchant in America. The collapse of public credit led to his being appointed superintendent of finance (1781–84) by Congress. Morris labored hard and well in this office; he pressed the states for contributions, retrenched expenditures, took steps toward the establishment of a national mint, guided the organization of a national bank, and extensively used his personal credit to raise funds for the government. He framed, but failed to get Congress to approve, a fiscal program including funding at par of the national debt and the assumption of state debts; it paralleled Alexander Hamilton's program of 1790. Morris was later a member of the U.S. Constitutional Convention (1787) and served (1789–95) as U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania. His private business, continued in his terms of office, ultimately ended in bankruptcy as a result of the collapse of extensive land speculation. Morris was in debtors' prison from 1798 to 1801 and never recovered his fortune.

Bibliography: See biographies by E. P. Oberholtzer (1903, repr. 1968) and C. Rappleye (2010); W. G. Sumner, The Financier and the Finances of the American Revolution (1891, repr. 1968); C. L. Ver Steeg, Robert Morris, Revolutionary Financier (1954, repr. 1972).

Morris, Robert (1734–1806), signer of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution; “financier of the Revolution.”Born in Liverpool, Morris came to America in 1747. As active partner of the trading firm of Willing, Morris & Co. of Philadelphia, Morris integrated his European and West Indian commercial network into the Revolutionary War effort in 1775.

A shrewd entrepreneur and energetic administrator, Morris became vice president of Pennsylvania's revolutionary governing body, the Council of Safety, in 1775, and organized the state's defenses. After election to the Second Continental Congress in November 1775, he became chairman of the Secret Committee of Trade and managed international procurement and naval affairs. He also participated in supply contracts and often disguised public ventures as private ones to facilitate secrecy and economy. The potential conflict of interest produced much controversy.

Morris retired from Congress in 1778, becoming an agent for supplying French forces in the United States and greatly augmenting his wealth and credit. When Congress was faced with financial and military collapse in 1781, it turned to Morris, by now the most prominent merchant in America, for help. As superintendent of finance, from February 1781 to November 1784, he raised money and supplies for the Yorktown campaign, then struggled to reestablish public credit by measures that included controlling the budget, founding the nation's first bank, settling the public debt, advocating a funding plan and mint, administering foreign loans, and replacing staff departments with military contracts. His administrative and financial skills are considered to have been indispensable to military success in the Revolutionary War.
[See also Revolutionary War: Domestic Course.]

Bibliography

Clarence L. Ver Steeg , Robert Morris, Revolutionary Financier, 1954; repr. 1972.
E. James Ferguson, et al., eds., The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784, 9 vols., 1973–99.

Elizabeth Nuxoll

Morris, Robert (1931– ). American sculptor, painter, experimental artist, and writer. He was born in Kansas City and studied engineering at the university there whilst also attending classes at the city's Art Institute. After service in the US Army, 1951–2, he began his artistic career in San Francisco, painting Abstract Expressionist pictures and also being involved with other activities including improvisatory theatre. In 1961 he moved to New York, where he took an MA in art history at Hunter College in 1963 (his thesis was on Brancusi). Meanwhile he had turned from painting to sculpture and he emerged as one of the most prominent exponents and theorists of Minimal art. He also experimented with Performance art, environments, and earthworks (see LAND ART), and through such activities he was prominent in breaking down traditional ideas linking the work of the artist with the studio, promoting instead the idea executing works in situ. Morris's most characteristic sculptures consist of large-scale, hardedged geometric forms, but he has also made anti-form pieces in soft, hanging materials. In 1983 he changed tack completely, returning to painting in an emotive figurative style, often with explicit political messages.

Robert Morris 1931–, American artist, b. Kansas City, Mo. He settled in New York City in 1960 and was allied in his early work with the simple, impersonal forms of minimalism , e.g., an untitled 1965 work consisting of four blocks of gray fiberglass. He also often used mirrored surfaces in his sculpture. Implicit in his work is the idea that art can be made of anything. Morris's style and media have changed many times during his career. He has used nonrigid materials such as felt and even steam—precluding reproducible forms and emphasizing the process of art—and was also involved in conceptual art and land art . He is known for his enormous multipart sculptures of the 1980s, which include a wide variety of materials, notably casts of body parts and skeletons. Morris has also experimented in performance art , incorporating dance, theater, and the plastic arts. He is a rigorous theorist of art and an influential teacher.

Morris, Robert (1734–1806) preeminent Philadelphia merchant and revolutionary financier, born in Liverpool, England. His administrative and financial skills are considered to have been indispensable to military success in the Revolutionary War. Called the “financier of the Revolution,” Morris, who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was a shrewd entrepreneur who often disguised public ventures as private ones to facilitate secrecy and economy. From 1775 to 1778 he served in the Second Continental Congress, where he chaired the Secret Committee of Trade (Congress's war department) and managed international procurement and naval affairs. As superintendent of finance (1781–84) Morris raised money and supplies for the Yorktown (1781) campaign and then worked to reestablish public credit through such measures as founding the nation's first bank and settling the public debt.

Morris, Robert (c.1702–54). English theorist of the second Palladian Revival, his Essay in Defence of Ancient Architecture (1728), Lectures on Architecture (1734), Essay on Harmony (1739), Art of Architecture (1742), Rural Architecture (1750), and Architectural Remembrancer (1751) were significant in augmenting Palladio's work with an aesthetic theory powerful enough to command attention and respect (e.g. from Jefferson). As an architect he was of small importance, but may have designed the south front of Culverthorpe, Lincs. (c.1730–5).

Bibliography

Colvin (1995);
E. Harris (1990);
E. Kaufmann (1955);
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004);
Summerson (ed.) (1993)

Morris, Robert (b Kansas City, Mo., 9 Feb. 1931). American artist and writer. He is regarded as one of the most prominent exponents and theorists of Minimal art, and has also worked in other fields, including Conceptual art, Land art, and Performance art. His most characteristic sculptures consist of large-scale, hard-edged geometric forms, but he has also produced ‘anti-form’ pieces in soft, hanging materials.

Morris, Robert (1931– ). American artist and writer. He is regarded as one of the most prominent exponents and theorists of Minimal art, and has also worked in other fields, including Conceptual art, Land art, and Performance art. His most characteristic sculptures consist of large-scale, hard-edged geometric forms, but he has also made ‘anti-form’ pieces in soft, hanging materials.

Morris, Robert (1734–1806) US politician. He emigrated from England in 1747 and became a wealthy merchant in Philadelphia. As a member of the Continental Congress he signed the Declaration of Independence. Appointed superintendent of finance (1781–84), he regulated military purchasing and organized the first bank, the Bank of North America (1781). In 1798 he was made bankrupt and imprisoned.