Free Republic

The Framers structured the Constitution to lead the new Republic to the ultimate end of slavery but were unable to set a time frame for its abolition. The story comes to us from James Madison’s classic Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787.The discussion on slavery at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 centered on two issues: 1. how to count the slaves in the apportionment of members in the popularly elected House of Representatives and; 2) setting an end date for the slave trade.Three distinct groups clashed on the assignment of House...

Subtitle: Gouverneur Morris Warns of a Uniparty. The convention slogged on as the large/small state standoff continued over the question of representation in the senate. I will follow a different course today and let a little-known Framer, Pennsylvania’s Gouverneur Morris take center stage. We can thank Morris for the precise text and prose of our Constitution. As chairman of the Committee of Style, he not only smoothed and connected resolutions, he occasionally inserted clauses on his own initiative, which the convention typically accepted as written. Where history tagged James Madison as the father of the Constitution, Morris was its acknowledged...

The result of the meetings at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was the United States Constitution, placing the Convention among the most significant events in the history of the United States. The delegates elected George Washington to preside over the convention. He was a towering figure, already considered the 'Father of His Country', and the most respected person there. Even men of high stature were nervous to approach him. But one story goes at this: Alexander Hamilton dared his fellow delegate Gouverneur Morris to clap General Washington on the shoulder and offer him a hearty greeting. Taking the dare, Morris...

Reflections on the anniversary of the birth of Gouverneur Morris Willis Haviland Carrier invented the first modern air conditioning machine in 1902 at the Buffalo Forge Company, and today, a century later, it’s difficult to imagine a home or office being built anywhere in America without either central A/C or at least a window or room unit to alleviate the summer heat. There was no such technological solution in the Founding Era, when statesmen committed to the Glorious Cause spent months at a time in Philadelphia, trying to think straight in a muggy meeting room at what we now call...

<p>In 1887 a young Teddy Roosevelt penned an appreciation of the life of his fellow New York pol, the founding father Gouverneur Morris. From this middling pinnacle of historical recognition, Morris slipped to a low plain of neglect and obscurity on which he has languished ever since, consigned to footnotes, unmentioned in civics classes, and omitted from the national mythology.</p>