Gouverneur Morris: Disabled Founder

 When the Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia in May 1787, there were several recognizable men.  Most delegates knew the great sage Benjamin Franklin. George Washington was one of the most identifiable men in America. Then there was Gouverneur Morris. An imposing figure at over six feet tall, he had been involved in politics since the early days of the revolution. He spoke with deep conviction and had a great swagger in the way he carried himself. But his most noticeable physical attribute was his wooden leg. Morris was an amputee, having lost his leg in an accident.  The only known founder with a disability of this type, he did not allow it to limit his life in any way, making numerous significant contributions to the government during the early years of the Republic.

Born in New York in 1752, Morris came from a wealthy, landowning family. At 23 he was elected to the New York Provincial Congress. Three years later in 1778, he was appointed to the Continental Congress where he was the youngest signer of the Articles of Confederation.

By 1780, Morris was living in Philadelphia. It was there that he suffered an accident that led to the amputation of his left leg below the knee.  Congressional delegate William Churchill Houston wrote to Phillip Schuyler on May 15, 1780,

“I am unhappy this morning to inform you of an accident which happened yesterday to Mr. Gouverneur Morris. He was riding out in a phaeton [small carriage], and the horses taking a fright ran away in the street, struck the carriage against a post, broke it all to pieces and in the shock fractured Mr. Morris’s ankle to such a degree that it became necessary to take off his leg immediately. He bore the operation with amazing firmness.”

Shortly after the accident rumors began to circulate about the specifics of Morris’s accident.  Morris had a reputation.  In short, he was a ladies’ man, and everyone knew it.  People began to speculate that he had injured his leg jumping from a second story window to escape the husband of a married woman he was seeing. He never corrected the story.  He loved the attention.

News of the accident took several weeks to reach John Jay who was serving as a diplomat in Spain.  Jay and Morris were good friends.  They had worked together on the New York State Constitution and on the Committee for Detecting and Defeating Conspiracies.  The notoriously pious Jay likely had strong feelings about his friend’s lifestyle.  Upon finding out about Morris’s amputation Jay wrote, “News of Gouverneur’s leg has been a tax on my heart. I am almost tempted to wish he had lost something else.”

Morris spent weeks convalescing.  His recovery went surprisingly well.  Receipts show that he purchased large quantities of vinegar, rum, and molasses (the combination was used as an antiseptic), soap, clean bedding, and had a personal nurse.  Access to these items likely prevented post-surgical infections and expedited the healing process. Once the amputation site had healed Morris was fitted with a 39 inch “peg leg” made of oak.  Morris would later experiment with legs made from copper and cork, but liked ones made of wood the best. 

Having an artificial limb never slowed Morris down. He continued to dance, socialize and serve in the government.

In 1787 Morris was selected as a Pennsylvania delegate to the Constitutional Convention.  At the convention he spoke more times than any other delegate, delivering 173 speeches.  Many of the speeches had to do with decrying slavery and promoting nationalism. He was appointed to the Committee on Style and Arrangement, and it is said that much of the language in the Constitution was written by Morris, earning him the moniker “The Penman of the Constitution.”

After the federal government was established, he spent his next years in France; first on personal business and then as Minister Plenipotentiary for the United States. His personal diaries from that time offer a valuable chronology of the French Revolution, his numerous affairs with both single and married women, and his personal political views.  The diaries also showcase Morris’s daily activities, many of which seem surprising for a man with a wooden leg. There are accounts of him walking as far as nine miles a day, climbing the Belfry of Bruges, and ascending to the top of the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

It is worth noting that his leg amputation was not the only physical challenge that Morris faced. When he was a teenager a kettle of boiling water fell on him causing severe burns to the right side of his body. In describing the congressional delegates, Georgia delegate William Pierce wrote of Morris, “This Gentleman is about 38 years old, he has been unfortunate in losing one of his Legs, and getting all the flesh taken off his right arm by scald, when a youth.”

Morris did not write much about his disability in his diaries.  To him it was not noteworthy.

Having a wooden leg was part of his everyday life.  However, there are occasional passages that reflect the physical trials of having an amputated limb.  On November 14, 1789 he wrote,     

“While I am visiting I am troubled with spasmodic affections of the nervous system which give great pain at times in the stump of my amputated leg, and, in the other leg, an anxious sensation which I conceive to arise from some derangement of the nervous system, and therefore I must expose myself more to the air and take exercise.”

After spending ten years in Europe, Morris returned to the United States. In April of 1800, he was elected to the United States Senate where he served for three years.  Later he would head the Erie Canal Commission, and work with two other men to design Manhattan’s street grid.

In 1809 at the age of 57, Morris married.  It was a surprise to those who knew him. He and his wife Nancy had one son, Gouverneur Morris II.

Morris developed gout during his time in Europe. The condition causes uric acid crystals to build up in the joints and can be incredibly painful. By the fall of 1816, Morris’s gout was crippling.  Suffering from a urinary tract blockage as a result of gout, he attempted to provide himself with relief.  Using a whalebone, likely from one of his wife’s corsets, he tried to self-catheterize to relieve the blockage.  The insertion of the whale bone resulted in internal damage that could not be repaired.  Morris died a few days later, likely from an infection.

Disability is frequently absent from our historiography, and when it is mentioned, the individual is often presented through a view of pity and lifelessness. Gouverneur Morris was the complete opposite of this. He traveled, loved, and served his government all while dealing with a striking physical disability. Historian and poet Mercy Otis Warren, one of Morris’s contemporaries, called him “[a] character eccentric from youth to declining age; a man of pleasure, pride, and extravagance.”

Interestingly, there are no images of Morris from his lifetime that show either his wooden leg or the damage to his right arm.  The first image that featured his prosthetic was created several decades after his death.