(And Why You've Never Heard Of Him...)
No, it wasn’t John Adams, Hancock, Jefferson, or even George Washington. It wasn’t Hamilton or Franklin, nor was it Henry or Paine.
His name was Robert Morris, and unless you’re a serious history buff, chances are you’ve never heard of him.
Robert Morris was a wealthy merchant and a banker from Pennsylvania. Under British rule, America was not a strictly Capitalist society. The British Empire had a mercantilist system at the time, which meant that the crown chartered and controlled all companies.
Morris In The Revolution
Morris profited quite nicely from this arrangement with the British crown. He had special banking privileges which made him something of a financial elitist.
It should come as no surprise then to find that Morris, a signatory of the Declaration, was very reluctant to join the American Revolution. Indeed, he only threw his support in when it became obvious that rebellion was inevitable.
You may be wondering “Wait a second, how could a guy that was so slow to join the revolution have been the most powerful man in that revolution?”
Well…
In his book, Cronyism, Professor Patrick Newman gives us the answer:
Morris was a savvy financial merchant, who was always more interested in enriching himself and his allies than the cause of American Independence.
Thanks to his position in banking, he was chosen as the head of the Secret Committee responsible for financing the Revolution.
This committee became very influential, very quickly.
Morris, as head of this secret financing committee, was responsible for such important decisions as declaring George Washington commander of the colonial armies!
George Washington was a conventional general. A conventional general needs a conventional army.
A conventional army needs conventional war supplies, and conventional war supplies need to be sold by a company that Morris has a financial interest in…
So what made him the most powerful man? As my father always used to say about the Golden Rule: “He who makes the gold, makes the rules.” Morris made the gold.
Robert Morris and his cronies became spectacularly wealthy over the production of warfare munitions and supplies.
Nevermind what they did to the American economy in the meantime:
A fifty fold increase in the money supply in 5 years
Draconian legal tender regulations
Skyrocketing prices
Mass shortages of food and other basic necessities
Morris and The Articles of Confederation
Even after the war, Morris maintained his power by becoming the Superintendent of Finance under the Articles of Confederation.
He immediately created the first central bank of the United States. He then promptly installed his business partner Thomas Willing as President of the bank and stuffed the board of directors with his “wartime chums.”
The Bank of North America (BONA) was designed to enrich Morris and his friends from the beginning. It was modeled after that bulwark of financial stability and purity: The Bank of England.
In exchange for monopoly rights on commercial banking, BONA began making loans to the federal government.
Incredibly, Morris would then appropriate these loans back to the bank in order to use as capital.
He tried to get his monopoly bank recognized in all the states, and when that didn’t work – Morris doubled down.
The Constitution and Cronyism
Remarkably, Morris was one of the masterminds behind the drafting of the constitution. Not because he was a lover of liberty, but because the constitution would allow for even greater government centralization!
After he got the constitution pushed through (a controversial history in itself), he would try again to force his banking monopoly on the whole country.
It was only thanks to true libertarians like Patrick Henry and John Hancock that Morris was eventually stopped.
He was even betrayed by his young protégé Alexander Hamilton (gasp!).
Ironically, he was eventually sent to debtor’s prison for an astronomical amount of debt and died with nothing.
If you liked this story and you want to find out even more, pick up Patrick Newman’s book Cronyism.
I cannot recommend it enough as a detailed history of government corruption from 1607 - 1849.
It is a very easy read and will likely shatter many of the conventional opinions you were taught growing up.
Another great book to check out if you want to know more about Robert Morris’s days as Superintendent of Finance is Murray Rothbard’s A History of Money and Banking In The United States.
Hope you found this article informing and entertaining, please send me any thoughts, corrections, wow-moments, concerns, or suggestions!
Comments