Six primary documents from the man who funded the Revolution and died broke. The abstention. The signature. The Bank of North America. The Yorktown correspondence. The debtors' prison. All documented.
Robert Morris was born on January 20, 1734, in Liverpool, England. His father, a tobacco agent in Maryland, brought him to America at age thirteen. After two years, Morris was apprenticed to the shipping firm of Charles Willing in Philadelphia. When his father died in 1750, Morris inherited a large estate. By 1757 he was a full partner in the firm. By 1775 he was likely the wealthiest man in America.
He also, in 1762, imported and sold two hundred enslaved persons through the firm. The record of that transaction is part of the archive of his commercial career.
You ask me what you are to think of Robt. Morris? I will tell you what I think of him. 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.
When independence came to a vote in the Continental Congress, Pennsylvania's delegation was the only one opposed. Morris refused to cast his vote for a break with Britain, he thought the colonies were not yet prepared for self-governance. He and a fellow delegate agreed to absent themselves so that the remaining Pennsylvania delegates in favor could constitute a majority. Richard Henry Lee's resolution passed on July 2. Pennsylvania was in favor.
Despite his abstention, Pennsylvania sent Morris back to Congress. On August 2, 1776, he signed the Declaration of Independence. He explained to General Horatio Gates that October why he had done it.
I am not one of those politicians that run testy when my own plans are not adopted. I think it is the duty of a good citizen to follow when he cannot lead.
By 1781 the Continental Army was near collapse. Congress could not pay its troops, supply its soldiers, or meet its foreign obligations. Morris was appointed Superintendent of Finance, with near-total authority over the national finances, and given the task of rescuing the government from bankruptcy.
He created the Bank of North America in 1782, the first chartered bank in the United States, stabilized the currency, and personally advanced money to fund the Yorktown campaign that ended the war. Washington wrote to him constantly about supplies, pay, and provisions. The correspondence is at Founders Online.
I have great Confidence in the Exertions you will make to give us the means of paying our brave fellows on whose good conduct so much depends. Our Movements from the Hudson to the Delaware and thence to Virginia were principally owing to your Exertions and the credit you gave us.
Morris attended the Constitutional Convention in 1787 as a Pennsylvania delegate. He rarely spoke on the floor, but he nominated George Washington to preside over the Convention, a move that was unanimously accepted. After ratification he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania. Washington offered him the position of first Secretary of the Treasury. Morris declined and recommended Alexander Hamilton instead.
He is one of only two people in American history to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution. The other is Roger Sherman of Connecticut, who already has a dedicated episode in the archive.
After the Constitution was ratified, Morris speculated heavily in land in the western territories. The land bubble burst. By 1797 he was insolvent. From 1798 to 1801 he was confined to the Philadelphia debtors' prison. He was released under the new federal bankruptcy law of 1800, an irony: the man who had rescued the national finances was freed by a federal law he could not have imagined when he was funding the Revolution.
He spent his final years living modestly in Philadelphia. He died on May 8, 1806. The nation he had done so much to fund was twenty-three years old and growing in the prosperity he never lived to share.