Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris--The Rake Who Wrote the Constitution.

• Author: Miller, Mark
• Position: Book Review

by Richard Brookhiser

Richard Brookhiser has written a brisk, insightful biography of one of the lesser-known founding fathers. Attorney, principal drafter of the U.S. Constitution, and ladies' man--not necessarily in that order--Gouverneur Morris should be more widely remembered today, and Brookhiser demonstrates why in Gentleman Revolutionary: Gouverneur Morris--The Rake Who Wrote the Constitution.

Gentleman Revolutionary begins by tracing Morris's lineage; Morris was born (in 1752) into the New York aristocracy of pre-Revolutionary America. In the opening chapter, several anecdotes acquaint the reader with the colorful family that produced this remarkable individual. For example, Judge Lewis Morris, Morris's grandfather, hired the printer John Peter Zenger. It was in carrying out the elder Morris's wishes that the printer was arrested for seditious libel, leading to the infamous trial and acquittal via jury pardon of Zenger.

Brookhiser next shifts his attention to the American Revolution, and Morris's role in the birth of the country. In 1775, at the age of 23, the young attorney threw his lot in against the British crown. As a delegate to the New York Provincial Congress, Morris was given the task of dealing with General George Washington of the Continental Army. The general and the young Morris began a relationship that would last until Washington's death near the turn of the 19th century. Morris served as advisor and benefactor to Washington; in return, President Washington appointed him minister to France. During his time in France, Morris observed the mayhem that beset the country between 1789 and 1797, yet during these tumultuous years he found the time to burnish his reputation as a popular paramour, as well. Brookhiser deftly blends the history of the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and Morris's private life in a way that makes the book a page-turner.

No doubt Morris's greatest contribution to the country was his drafting of the U.S. Constitution. Almost all schoolchildren learn that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, but few know that the little-known Morris wrote the famous Preamble to the Constitution:

We, the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and...