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“We the People of the United States” is perhaps the most famous phrase in the Constitution – and it wasn’t penned by James Madison like the most of the Constitution.  We owe this enigmatic phrase to an equally enigmatic delegate to the Constitutional Convention — Gouverneur Morris, the author of the Preamble to the US Constitution. 

In the East Wing of Independence Hall hangs a portrait of the Constitutional Convention and when I gave talks, I was frequently asked about Gouverneur because in this portrait he is depicted with an artificial leg, and NO, he was not a pirate!  He wasn’t a pirate but he was definitely one of the wildest of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention and he lost his leg while fleeing the husband of a lady with which he was engaged in one of his mangy in trysts. 

Morris didn’t marry until he was 57. During his bachelor years, he had quite a few romantic escapades – one of which cost him a leg. Morris lost his leg at age 32 after being hit by a carriage at the intersection of Logan’s Alley and Dock Street in Philadelphia.  He was running from the scorned husband whose wife Morris had left in their bedchamber.  A carriage ran over his leg and the trauma was so severe that it had to be amputated. After the accident, one of Morris’s friends optimistically hoped that the new peg leg might help Morris avoid the “the pleasures and dissipations of life.” In response, Morris quipped, “You argue the matter so handsomely, and point out so clearly the advantages of being without legs, that I am almost tempted to part with the other.”

In a different escapade in France, Morris carried on an extended affair with a married woman who lived in the Louvre.  In the 1790’s the Louvre was a palace for the French king. And Morris’s lady friend also happened to live there. Morris recorded their love affair in his diary, using the word “celebrating” as code for sex. If his diary is any indication, apparently the two liked to take risks. One of the diary entries describes the pair having sex in the hallway with the doors open:

Go to the Louvre… we take the Chance of Interruption and celebrate in the Passage while [Mademoiselle] is at the Harpsichord in the Drawing Room. The husband is below. Visitors are hourly expected. The Doors are all open.

He didn’t record whether they were caught.

They say, “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword” and this saying is especially apt for Morris, although you will grant me the forbearance if I use a slang definition for sword.  It seems that Morris’ escapades eventually resulted in trouble with his “sword.” He developed a blockage in his urethra that gave him trouble urinating. Hoping to dislodge the blockage, he tied to sticking a piece of whalebone up his urethra causing great deal of damage that ultimately contributed to his death.   Seems he lost yet another appendance….

In 1787, delegates met in Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution. Morris became one of the most important members of the Constitutional Convention, giving more speeches than any other delegate – 173, to be exact. Morris is responsible for the presidential veto power and was one of the leading delegates arguing for the abolition of slavery.   His most enduring contribution, however, is the 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 establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It will be another 188 years before Schoolhouse Rock has us all singing his praises again,,,,

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