Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life [Anglais] [Relié]

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.

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
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A plainspoken, 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 comprehensive, engrossing 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 center 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.

Winner of the 2004 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award.

"This forgotten founder was as large and multifaceted as the Revolution itself. Marvelously idiosyncratic, he had a fiery imagination that went along with his unabashed taste for women. Alternately ambivalent and industrious, he was a cranky political genius. William Howard Adams's biography is essential reading."-Andrew Burstein, author of The Passions of Andrew Jackson

William Howard Adams is also the author of The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson, published by Yale University Press.