Morris, Robert

MORRIS, ROBERT. (1734–1806). Merchant and congressman, called the "Financier of the Revolution." Pennsylvania. Robert Morris was born in Liverpool, England, on 20 January 1735. At the age of thirteen he came to America with his father and went to work in the Philadelphia mercantile house of Charles Willing. By 1754 he had become a partner. Three years later, with Charles's son Thomas, he formed Willing and Morris, a firm that with its successors held a leading position in American trade for the next thirty-nine years. His first public political act was to sign the nonimportation agreement of 1765; thereafter, he served on many committees formed to resist increased imperial control. After the shooting started in April 1775, Morris became a leading figure in the Patriot cause. On 30 June 1775 the assembly named him to the Pennsylvania Council of Safety, where his commercial talents were immediately put to use; when Franklin was absent, Morris ran the council.

VITAL WORK IN CONGRESS

Elected to the Second Continental Congress in November 1775, he quickly became a member of several important congressional committees, including the Secret Committee of Trade, "Congress's war department," where he succeeded his partner, Willing. Among many other activities, he personally arranged for the procurement of vessels, munitions, and naval armament in November 1775 and drew up the instruction for Silas Deane in February 1776, all the while continuing to tend to the commercial affairs of Willing and Morris. In performing his valuable official services he remained a businessman, collecting his broker's commissions and overlooking no opportunity to make a profit. While he made great profits, largely because of his ability, he also took huge risks in accomplishing the financial missions assigned by Congress and the Pennsylvania authorities, a fact that was understood and accepted by his colleagues. According to John Adams, in a letter to Horatio Gates on 27 April 1776:

I think he has a masterly Understanding, an open Temper and an honest Heart: and if he does not always vote for What you and I should think proper, it is because he thinks that a large Body of People remains, who are not yet of his Mind. He has vast designs in the mercantile Way. And no doubt pursues mercantile Ends, which are always gain; but he is an excellent Member of our Body. (Taylor, Adams Papers, 4, p. 148)

Morris thought the movement toward independence in 1776 was premature. He abstained from voting on the Declaration of Independence in July, but when he saw it was the will of the majority, he signed the document in August 1776. When Congress fled to Baltimore in December 1776, Morris remained in Philadelphia to carry out the work of the Secret Committee and on 21 December was designated by Congress along with George Clymer and George Walton as its executive committee. As Washington prepared the desperate strategy that was to end with his brilliant riposte at Trenton and Princeton, it was Morris who furnished him the necessary backing of the civil authority of the country. Simultaneously looking after the commercial interests of his firm—which may have been an important reason why he did not flee to Baltimore—Morris bore a tremendous personal burden at this critical period of American history and carried it off without a stumble.

In March 1778 Morris signed the Articles of Confederation. From August to 1 November 1778, the expiration of his term, he was chairman of Congress's Committee on Finance. Ineligible for reelection under the terms of the new state constitution of Pennsylvania, Morris was immediately elected to the Pennsylvania assembly and took his seat on 6 November.

TAINTED BY SCANDAL

The burden of his dual public and private role had already begun to take its toll. During the winter of 1777–1778, the misconduct of Thomas Morris, a younger half-brother for whom Robert had secured appointment as commercial agent in France, precipitated a temporary misunderstanding between Morris and the American commissioners in Paris, Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin. The controversy that followed the recall of Deane involved Morris after January 1779, when Thomas Paine attacked Morris and Deane in the press and Henry Laurens, then president of Congress, charged Willing and Morris with fraud in the management of the covert operations of Hortalez et Cie that sent vital military supplies across the Atlantic. An investigation exonerated both Hortalez et Cie and Willing and Morris, but public opinion—led by opponents who resented his success—began to turn against Morris. He was denied reelection to Congress in November 1779, although a year later he regained his seat in the Pennsylvania assembly, where he served until June 1781. In these years, he was acknowledged as the leading merchant in America and probably its wealthiest citizen.

SUPERINTENDENT OF FINANCE

Meanwhile, the financial underpinning of the Revolution had collapsed. On the nomination of Hamilton, Congress on 20 February 1781 named Morris superintendent of finance, a unique office established to salvage what appeared to be a near-total loss of confidence in the fiscal management of the Confederation government. Insisting first that Congress permit him to continue his personal business and that he be allowed to control the personnel of his department, Morris accepted the post on 14 May. He had always been opposed to the carefree and financially irresponsible procedures that had led to the collapse of the Continental currency, including the price controls and legal pressure designed to make people accept worthless paper money at par value. With the government nearly insolvent, Morris, according to the historian Clarence L. ver Steeg:

believed that the public credit of the Confederation could be revived only by utilizing private credit. He took steps to achieve two goals: in the short term to provide the military with supplies to win the war; and, more important, in the long term to introduce a comprehensive national financial program to strengthen the Confederation politically. (Ver Steeg, ANB)

He persuaded Congress to charter the Bank of North America (and used its bank notes to pay urgent expenses, especially pay and supplies for the Continental army), pledged his own personal credit to the government (and issued "Morris's notes" to supplement the public credit), and extolled the virtues of funding the public debt by means of a permanent national revenue. The message he sent to Congress about funding on 29 July 1782 has been called "the most important single American state paper on public credit written prior to 1790," but the scheme failed when Rhode Island and Virginia rejected the impost that would have provided the revenue stream.

Relying on various economies in purchasing and administration, his own Morris's notes, some financial sleight of hand, and the loan of two hundred thousand dollars in specie from France, he financed the Yorktown campaign, which so foreclosed British military options to regain her colonies that it broke Britain's will to continue the fight. Morris endured a torrent of criticism, especially because he contracted for the public as many debts during his two years in office as there had been before his advent. Since the states still refused to accept their obligations and furnish the revenue needed for a viable currency, Congress remained impotent. In despair and disgust, Morris submitted his resignation on 24 January 1783, part of a plan to shock the states into action that included foreknowledge of the effort undertaken by Gouverneur Morris (no relation) and Alexander Hamilton to foment unrest in the Continental army as a pressure tactic. Washington quashed this so-called Newburgh conspiracy in March. But since nobody stepped forth to take Morris's job, in May he was prevailed upon to retain his office and eventually found the funds—with the help of a Dutch loan secured by John Adams—to pay and demobilize the army by the end of the year. Morris finally resigned his office in September 1784.

FINANCIAL DOWNFALL

Convinced of the need for a strong central government, he served in the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and actively supported the Federalists thereafter. He declined Washington's offer to be the first secretary of the treasury (he recommended Hamilton instead) but served in the Senate from 1789 through 1795. His financial downfall came because he overextended himself in land speculation. In February 1798 he was hauled off for over three and a half years in debtors' prison. Released on 26 August 1801 under terms of the Federal Bankruptcy Act of 1800, he lived his last five years in a small house in Philadelphia, supported by the annuity Gouverneur Morris had secured for his wife. He died on 8 May 1806.

SEE ALSO Deane, Silas; Finances of the Revolution; Hortalez & Cie; Newburgh Addresses.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ferguson, E. James. The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776–1790. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.

Ferguson, E. James et al., eds. Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784. 8 vols. Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973–1995.

Taylor, Robert J., et al., eds. Papers of John Adams. Vol. 4, February-August 1776. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979.

Ver Steeg, Clarence L. Robert Morris: Revolutionary Financier, with an Analysis of His Earlier Career. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954.