Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life [Hardcover]

Professor William Howard Adams (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0300099800 | ISBN-13: 978-0300099805 | Publication Date: October 1, 2003 | Edition: 1st ed

This title is a biography of one of the most colourful and least well-known of the founding fathers. A plain-spoken, racy patrician who distrusted democracy but opposed slavery and championed freedom for all minorities, an important player in the American Revolution, later an astute critic of the French Revolution, Gouverneur Morris remains an enigma among the founding generation. This biography tells his robust story, including his celebrated love affairs during his long stay in Europe. Morris's public record is astonishing. One of the leading figures of the Constitutional Convention, he put the Constitution in its final version, including its opening Preamble. As Washington's first minister to Paris, he became America's most effective representative in France. A successful, international entrepreneur, he understood the dynamics of commerce in the modern world. Frankly cosmopolitan, he embraced city life as a creative centre of civilization and had a central role in the building of the Erie Canal and in laying out the urban grid plan of Manhattan. William Howard Adams describes Morris's many contributions, talents, sophistication, and wit, as well as his romantic liaisons, free habits, and free speech. He brings to life a fascinating man of great stature, a founding father who receives his due at last.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Richard Brookhiser's just-published biography of Gouverneur Morris, he makes the man appealing. Adams (The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson) goes further: he makes Morris significant in a more searching, thorough and authoritative work. Morris was a man "unapologetically comfortable with himself" who stepped onto the political stage in 1775, a rare urbanite among the nation's founders, an early opponent of slavery and champion of religious tolerance. Wielding one of the great pens of his era and matching in edgy brilliance perhaps only Alexander Hamilton, he helped write New York's first constitution, made substantive contributions to the Constitution of 1787 (centrally shaping the American presidency, drafting the epochal preamble and styling the whole document) and served as ambassador to Britain and then France during the tumultuous early years of the French Revolution. Back in the U.S., he helped lay out New York City's grid system and influentially promoted the Erie Canal. Because of Morris's involvement in so much, Adams's book is really half a history of an entire epoch, and yet it never loses its focus on Morris. Unlike Brookhiser, who strains to make Morris attractive as a generous-spirited "rake," Adams allows Morris's nature to emerge from his hugely significant acts. The result is a compelling portrait of an admirable conservative who today would be brought down by his nonideological approach to issues if not by his stylish philandering. This full, sympathetic, engrossing yet clear-eyed biography of a near-great forgotten founder, a work whose graceful prose only enhances its deep scholarship, will now be the standard biography of its subject.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Several neighborhoods in the Bronx carry his surname, but the fame of Gouverneur Morris, safe to say, stops with place-names. This scholarly biography, together with Richard Brookhiser's more accessible Gentleman Revolutionary [BKL Je 1 & 15 03], revives a figure of the American Revolution who was critically involved with its successful outcome. Born into wealth, Morris abhorred disorder and viewed society in hierarchical terms--he was a Federalist, naturally--but his was also one of the most forthright antislavery voices of the Revolutionary generation. Adams stolidly recounts the incidents of Morris' life, which is historically significant for two achievements: Morris' financial legerdemain in hauling the continental and its successor confederation government across the finish line of independence; and his counsel at the 1787 constitutional convention, capped by his rewrite of the final document, including the preamble. Adams also covers the private liaisons that fueled Morris' raffish reputation. The author's thorough research should make his work the academic benchmark. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; 1st ed edition (October 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300099800
• ISBN-13: 978-0300099805
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #988,164 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adams Spendidly Gives Morris his Just Due, February 18, 2004

By 

William Hughes (Baltimore, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life (Hardcover)

In his book, "Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life," William Howard Adams splendidly brings to life one of our Republic's most important citizens, the incomparable, the iconic, Gouverneur Morris! It's fair to say that this remarkable, witty, intellectual and cynical man was "The Bronx." His family estate, Morrisania, encompassed 9,000 acres of that area in New York. It stretched from the Harlem River to the south and touched on the East River, facing Randall's Island.

Morris was a New Yorker, all 6 ft. 4 inches of him. When Manhattan was young, he was young, too, graduating from King's College, (now Columbia), just before the outbreak of the American Revolution. As a budding lawyer, he tied his rising political star to the powerful Livington faction in NY State. Morris knew everybody that was anybody in NY, PA, MD, and Virginia. He later did a stint, as a Federalist, in the U.S. Senate, too.

Morris didn't hesitate to keep a record of his personal views on the leading American personalities of his day, ranging from: Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; the Immortal George Washington; James Monroe; the legal giant, John Marshall; John Adams; James Madison; Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson; Ben Franklin; and his intimate friend, the legendary financier, Robert Morris, to name just a few. When General Washington was desperate for aid for his troops camped at Valley Forge, PA, it was Morris, who provided it. Working with (not a relative) Robert Morris, Gouverneur was able to devise a financial plan that kept the Continental Army afloat until the French government could come to its rescue, just prior to the Allies' great victory at Yorktown, VA, over the British imperialists.

As a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, Morris helped to draft the Constitution and authored its "Preamble," one of the most powerful statements in all of the literature of that heroic period. He opposed slavery even though he owned slaves. He championed a Republican government, with checks and balances, to keep any tyrant from taking power and/or the Mob.

As an American Envoy, Morris also witnessed the "Reign of Terror," in France first hand. He had a lot to say, most of it very insightful, about why that experiment failed so miserably. Morris was critical, too, of the Marquis Lafayette's role in that bloodstained fiasco. He believed that Lafayette, a bona fide hero of the American Republic, was too much of "an idealist" to control or influence in a positive way that highly manipulated process. When Lafayette ended up in a grim Austrian prison, it was Morris, nevertheless, that worked behind the scenes to secure his eventual release.

Adams weaved into his portrait of Morris, the passionate love of his life, Adelaide Marie Emile (who was also the lady friend of that foxy Talleyrand). While Paris is descending into chaos, the one-legged Morris (he has lost his left leg in an accident), was chasing after "Adel." He finally caught her. But alas, their romance was not to last. Morris, depressed, consoled himself for a while with traveling throughout Europe. An astute business man, he made a fortune speculating in land, especially in Northern New York. At age 59, the old patriot, who had championed the building of the Erie Canal and laid out, in the role of an urban planner, New York City, settled down on his beloved estate at Morrisania, married a Virginia belle and fathered one child. He died, at age 64, in 1816.

This first rate biography belongs in the library of every lover of the history of the American Revolution. Adams has given Gouverneur Morris, an ardent and brave advocate of republican liberty, his just due.

10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A missed opportunity, June 20, 2005

By 

R Smith "R Smith" (chicago, il) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life (Hardcover)

For years, my knowledge of the revolutionary and federalist eras were informed by bland college textbooks, indifferent professors, and mythological stories. Imagine my joy when contemporary writers (McCullough, Ellis, Zinn, Shaara, etc.) managed to highlight the remarkable achievements of the individuals involved in these eras.

In many of the publications, I kept seeing Morris' name pop up and thought I would read this biography. The main problem with this book is the writing and style. While technically obeying the elements of the English language, the author's style is agonizingly plodding and uninteresting (just like the textbooks and professors that encouraged me to avoid historical scholarship for the first 25 years of my life). Frustratingly, the author applauds the efforts of Ellis, McCullough, and Elkins in brining the people and events of this era alive -- and then does the exact opposite, writing a book so bland discombobulated only a machoist could enjoy it.

There is a reason public demand is so high for books by Chernow, Ellis, and Brands and why this book will quickly be relegated to never-been-checked-out library book sales. The author had an opportunity to write about an interesting subject, but choose instead to write a pretentious 300 page sleeping pill. What a missed opportunity!

By itself, the book is tolerable, but put it next to Chernow, Ellis, or even Elkins and McKitrick and it is crushed. On the bright side, you could learn a thing or two about Morris by reading this book -- just don't expect to have near as much fun as you would with other authors.