Signing Their Rights Away (13 page)

Mifflin fought with distinction at the battles of Long Island, Trenton, and Princeton. He was eventually promoted to the rank of major general but spent much of his time, at Washington’s request, working as the army’s quartermaster in charge of locating supplies and outfitting troops. Though he was allowed to collect a commission on goods he bought and sold, and his sharp mind for logistics and mercantile background made him an obvious choice for the post, Mifflin likely detested the job and considered it a waste of his talents. He preferred to be out in the field or raising morale among
the troops and is credited with persuading many soldiers to remain in the service. Ironically, after the disastrous seizure of Philadelphia by the British in 1777, Mifflin tried to resign his job, claiming he was too ill to continue. Historians think he just wanted to ditch the outfitter gig. Yet, he remained in the military and ended up working for the Board of War, the Congressional committee in charge of army matters. That post no doubt bored him to tears as well.

At some point, Mifflin grew fed up with being sidelined and involved himself with the notorious Conway Cabal, a plot to oust and replace Washington with another military hero, General Horatio Gates. When Washington’s supporters learned of the plan, they demanded to see the financial records Mifflin had kept while quartermaster, insisting that he had misused government money in what one historian calls a “highly unethical, albeit legal way.” Unfortunately, Mifflin’s records were a mess. Washington wanted to court-martial him for insubordination, but Mifflin escaped the general’s wrath by ignominiously resigning from the military. To silence his foes, in 1782 Mifflin published his “economic autobiography” in a local newspaper, which has provided historians with a fascinating account of one man’s astute accumulation of wealth—through real estate, ships, and army commissions—during wartime.

Cut to 1783. The war is over. George Washington, now regarded as nothing short of a saint, returns to resign his commission before Congress. Who should Washington see sitting in the exalted seat of power, as president of Congress, but his old nemesis, Thomas Mifflin. In an absurdly flowery speech, Mifflin ate crow and thanked Washington for, um, winning the war and stuff.

Mifflin was still president of Congress when the nation formally ended the Revolutionary War. After leaving Congress, he was active in Pennsylvania’s legislature and even served as the state’s president, a precursor to the governorship. It’s true that he went to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, but no one has found any record of his participation, beyond seconding a motion and signing the document
on September 17. In 1790, he was elected the first governor of the Keystone State by an incredible margin of 10–1. Some wags later gossiped that he’d bought off the election by pandering to his beloved lower-class voters. One can picture the “handsome rotund” Mifflin glad-handing the rabble in Philly’s taverns, tankard in hand. He stayed in office nine years, during some of the worst times in the state’s history. He presided over the horrors of the yellow fever epidemics and later sent Pennsylvania’s militia into the state’s frontier territory to quell the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion. In raising troops for the militia, he addressed the common people and invoked the document forever linked with his name: “Are you willing to serve your country; to save your Constitution, and to assist in securing from anarchy, as you did from despotism, the freedom and independence of America?”

His three terms as governor were marred, however, by accusations of bad personal behavior. Claiming to be sick, Mifflin often skipped important meetings. Oliver Wolcott, a son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the nation’s new secretary of the Treasury, confided to a friend, “The governor is an habitual drunkard. Every day, and not infrequently in the forenoon, he is unable to articulate distinctly.” (Ah, no wonder Mifflin was always described as having a “hearty claret color or rather ruddy complexion.”) This sad truth might have been easier to live down had it not been accompanied by more charges of embezzlement. Apparently, Mifflin had dipped into public funds, withdrawing money from a Pennsylvania bank for his personal use, only to repay the funds when the truth was uncovered.

In 1799, Mifflin closed out his last term in the new seat of the state government—Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He accepted duties in the state house but didn’t live long to perform them. He was dead within a month, at the age of fifty-six. A lavish spender who dodged creditors toward the end of his life, he left behind an estate so squandered that he had to be buried at public expense.

The Signer Who Went to Debtors’ Prison

BORN
: January 31, 1734

DIED
: May 8, 1806

AGE AT SIGNING
: 53

PROFESSION
: Merchant, banker, land speculator

BURIED
: Christ Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Known to history as the “Financier of the Revolution,” Robert Morris was a tremendously successful merchant, banker, broker, and fund-raiser. But for all his efforts to keep the fledgling United States and its army from going broke, he wasn’t able to manage the same for himself.

One of the few immigrant signers, Morris was born in Liverpool, England. He came to America with his father and quickly established himself as a merchant, prospering as a partner in his own firm in Philadelphia called Willing and Morris. He married Mary White, and together they had five children. Being a wealthy merchant and
banker with one of the biggest shipping firms in the colonies made Morris an unlikely candidate to aid the revolutionary cause. There was money to be made, after all. He may have been frustrated with the Stamp Act of 1765, for example, but he wasn’t so upset that he wanted to revolt. He did, however, sign nonimportation agreements, promising his fellow patriots that he would not trade in British goods, a gutsy stance for anyone who traded with the Crown.

As he became more involved with the patriot cause, Morris’s firm began importing arms and ammunition for Congress. Sent to the Continental Congress in 1776, he was relied upon for his financial prowess and connections. He worked on the Secret Committee of Commerce, which acquired foreign goods for the military, paying for them with in-kind shipments of goods from the colonies. Soon after entering Congress, however, the pesky issue of whether to declare independence from Britain arose. Morris thought the timing was all wrong. He was not alone.

Pennsylvania was divided. Although Morris did not want to vote for independence, he also didn’t want to prevent the motion from passing. So, on the day of the big vote, he simply played hooky. After the resolution passed, he signed the Declaration of Independence, becoming the only Pennsylvania signer who could have voted for independence but chose not to. Later, Morris explained why he continued to serve his nation even though he disagreed with its choice to become independent: “I think that an individual who declines the service of his country because its councils are not comfortable to his ideas, makes but a bad subject; a good one will follow if he cannot lead.” The next year, he even apologized for not supporting independence.

To finance the American Revolution, Morris wheeled, dealed, begged, borrowed, and then some. Most historians agree that without the three-pronged team of Franklin wooing the French, Washington fighting the war, and Moneybags Morris securing the cash, the Union Jack would still be flying high over the states. Larger-than-life Morris
was socially skilled and had a talent for charming folks out of their money. He had connections in the financial world that Congress lacked, and copious personal credit to boot. When times were desperate, he even dipped into his personal savings.

When the troops needed food, ammunition, and dry boots, when Congress didn’t have any real credit to speak of, Morris was the man. Washington wrote to Morris directly when he was banked on the Delaware waiting to cross, with precious few supplies on hand. Morris brought out the checkbook, and Washington took the Hessians to the cleaners. Later, Morris secured funding for Washington’s Yorktown campaign, which helped end the war. The two men would be friends for life.

The resilience of Morris’s fortunes, even in wartime, was regarded as impressive by some, suspicious by others. In 1779, he was accused of war profiteering, but a congressional hearing cleared his name. Despite the setback, he was appointed by Congress as the nation’s superintendent of finance in 1781, and he got to work revamping the nation’s money system. Assisted by cosigner and friend Gouverneur Morris (no relation), Morris set the withering finances of the colonies back on track, established new procedures for supplying the military, and founded America’s first government-incorporated bank, the Bank of North America, considered to be the model for Alexander Hamilton’s later creation, the Bank of the United States. Morris resigned his post in 1784 to focus on business, returning to Pennsylvania politics in time for the Constitutional Convention.

Morris, like Washington, was a strong nationalist and thought the Articles of Confederation should be revamped or replaced. But his behavior at the convention was surprisingly discreet. On the first day, he officially nominated Washington to be convention president but then kept mum for the rest of the proceedings. It may have been that he preferred back-room politics. Ever the socialite, Morris hosted Washington at his home in Philadelphia, and they would
receive other delegates after hours. There were dinner parties, invitations to Morris’s estate outside town, and, of course, frequent trips to the pub. Perhaps Morris was more interested in discussing his views over pints rather than on public record.

He did regard the resulting document, with all its perceived flaws and controversy, as the work of “plain, honest men,” and he was happy to sign it. Washington offered him the job as first secretary of the Treasury, but Morris passed it up, choosing instead to serve as a senator to the first Congress. He supported Hamilton’s financial system, which drew inspiration from Morris’s term as superintendent of finance.

Like many of his fellow delegates, Morris was swept up in the land speculation craze of the late 1780s. He—alone and with partners—bought and sold millions of acres of land throughout the colonies and the territories west of the established states. At one point, his land holdings were estimated to be worth roughly $2 million (yes, those are eighteenth-century dollars). But Morris let his ambitions get away from him. Much of what he bought was purchased with public securities, and when the values of those securities increased, Morris’s finances took a dive. Immigration dried up, and so did interest in frontier property. He was upside-down on his loans with no way to dig himself out and not a federal bailout in sight. The great financial mind of the Revolution was arrested and sent to Philadelphia’s Prune Street debtor’s prison. He left behind his family as well as an unfinished mansion on Chestnut Street that became known as Morris’s Folly. (It was later torn apart for scrap.)

While Morris served his time, his old friend Washington stopped by to visit and even dined with him. His friend Gouverneur Morris secured an annuity for his wife, Mary, so that she could support herself; that same money helped the couple when Morris was later released. He spent the end of his remarkable life in obscurity, dying bankrupt and all but lost to history, although his contributions to
the origins of the United States cannot be contested. In 1878, long after Morris was gone, the nation honored him by placing his portrait on the first $10 silver certificate.