To Secure the Blessings of Liberty: Selected Writings of Gouverneur Morris

1 • To the Inhabitants of the Colony of New-York (1769)

1 The New York Chronicle, December 25, 1769, p. 1. Courtesy American Antiquarian Society. Excerpts from the letter are printed in Sparks, Life, 1:14. 1. Both orations are in the Gouverneur Morris Papers, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University. 2. E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance, 1776–1790 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), 3–24; Margaret G. Myers, A Financial History of the United States (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 6–12. 1 • To the Inhabitants of the Colony of New-York (1769) The first of Morris’s works that has come down to us is his oration on “Wit and Beauty” for the King’s College commencement exercises upon completing his B.A. in 1768. Three years later, receiving his M.A., he delivered an address on “Love.”1 His biographers have not failed to note that in these addresses, Morris sounded academic themes well suited to his unique blend of the intellectual and the romantic. Meanwhile, on completing his B.A. he had embarked on a more prosaic career as a lawyer. But it, too, seemed to fit him well. His apprenticeship in the law office of William Smith immersed Morris in the commercial and political life of colonial New York; and there he formed lifelong friendships with his fellow law clerk John Jay and a young lawyer in Smith’s office, Robert R. (Chancellor) Livingston. In 1769, the New York Assembly decided to finance the colony’s debts through an issue of bills of credit. This was a frequent expedient in the colonies, where a shortage of hard currency restricted commerce and left governments perpetually short of revenue.2 But paper money brought its own problems, and even though New York’s was better managed than some, the commercial and creditor interests stood opposed. In this letter Morris, just shy of his 18th birthday, displays the ability to understand and explain the intricacies of public finance that would mark him as a young man on the rise. 2 chaPtEr 1 •• Gentlemen, There is a report, that our assembly have been promised the royal assent to the issuing a paper currency. Many in this province declaim against it as pernicious, many extol it as productive of the most solid advantages. Unpracticed in civil policy, wholly ignorant of exchequer business, and almost a stranger to this currency, I lay before you, the unprejudiced sentiments of a private citizen. Sentiments which reason impresses upon his mind, which a love of his country, and a tender solicitude for its welfare, compels him to make known. Bear with me then a little, whilst I endeavour to trace the effects attendant upon public bills of credit. To evolve which, let us suppose The money in a country ⎫ ⎧ £.1000 The yearly exported produce ⎪ ⎪ 1000 Foreign goods imported yearly ⎬ equal ⎨ 600 And the sum struct be to cancelled to in twenty years by an equable tax ⎪ ⎪ 2000 during that term ⎭ ⎩ Let us suppose farther that such a country is indebted to a foreign state 4000l. at 5 per cent. per annum. Hence it is apparent, that if no money is struck, the foreign debt will, in twenty years, with interest, amount to £.8000. The ballance of trade in their favour of 400l. per ann. will in twenty years amount to £.8000 Remains due £.0000 The interest at 5 per cent upon that ballance, from the time it arises to the end of that term of twenty years is..................................... £.3800 which would remain and circulate among the inhabitants let this money be struck. Now since it is an invariable true maxim, that the prices of all commodities rise and fall, according to the relative scarceness or plenty of money; since it is as true, that the value both of home produce exported, and foreign goods imported, must be estimated by that price for which they sell, at the place where they are sold; and since by stricking the above supposed sum, the quantity of current money would be encreased two thirds, therefore foreign goods imported will thereupon rise to the value of £1000, and this equals their exported produce, so that no ballance will (as before) remain to pay their debt. But further, as this debt would continually demand payments, because continually increased by the importation of foreign To the Inhabitants of New-York 3 goods; as these payments will...