But the small politicians of New York would not forgive him for the wisdom and the broad feeling of nationality he showed on this and so many other questions; and they defeated him when he was a candidate for reëlection to Congress at the end of 1779. The charge they urged against him was that he devoted his time wholly to the service of the nation at large, and not to that of New York in particular; his very devotion to the public business, which had kept him from returning to the State, being brought forward to harm him. Arguments of this kind are common enough even at the present day, and effective too, among that numerous class of men with narrow minds and selfish hearts. Many an able and upright Congressman since Morris has been sacrificed because his constituents found he was fitted to do the exact work needed; because he showed himself capable of serving the whole nation, and did not devote his time to advancing the interests of only a portion thereof.
[CHAPTER V.]
FINANCES: THE TREATY OF PEACE.
At the end of 1779 Morris was thus retired to private life; and, having by this time made many friends in Philadelphia, he took up his abode in that city. His leaving Congress was small loss to himself, as that body was rapidly sinking into a condition of windy decrepitude.
He at once began working at his profession, and also threw himself with eager zest into every attainable form of gayety and amusement, for he was of a most pleasure-loving temperament, very fond of society, and a great favorite in the little American world of wit and fashion. But although in private life, he nevertheless kept his grip on public affairs, and devoted himself to the finances, which were in a most wretched state. He could not keep out of public life; he probably agreed with Jay, who, on hearing that he was again a private citizen, wrote him to "remember that Achilles made no figure at the spinning-wheel." At any rate, as early as February, 1780, he came to the front once more as the author of a series of essays on the finances. They were published in Philadelphia, and attracted the attention of all thinking men by their soundness. In fact it was in our monetary affairs that the key to the situation was to be found; for, had we been willing to pay honestly and promptly the necessary war expenses, we should have ended the struggle in short order. But the niggardliness as well as the real poverty, of the people, the jealousies of the states, kept aflame by the states-rights leaders for their own selfish purposes, and the foolish ideas of most of the congressional delegates on all money matters, combined to keep our treasury in a pitiable condition.
Morris tried to show the people at large the advantage of submitting to reasonable taxation, while at the same time combating some of the theories entertained as well by themselves as by their congressional representatives. He began by discussing with great clearness what money really is, how far coin can be replaced by paper, the interdependence of money and credit, and other elementary points in reference to which most of his fellow-citizens seemed to possess wonderfully mixed ideas. He attacked the efforts of Congress to make their currency legal tender; and then showed the utter futility of one of the pet schemes of revolutionary financial wisdom, the regulation of prices by law. Hard times, then as now, always produced not only a large debtor class, but also a corresponding number of political demagogues who truckled to it; and both demagogue and debtor, when they clamored for laws which should "relieve" the latter, meant thereby laws which would enable him to swindle his creditor. The people, moreover, liked to lay the blame for their misfortunes neither on fate nor on themselves, but on some unfortunate outsider; and they were especially apt to attack as "monopolists" the men who had purchased necessary supplies in large quantities to profit by their rise in price. Accordingly they passed laws against them; and Morris showed in his essays the unwisdom of such legislation, while not defending for a moment the men who looked on the misfortunes of their country solely as offering a field for their own harvesting.
He ended by drawing out an excellent scheme of taxation; but, unfortunately, the people were too short-sighted to submit to any measure of the sort, no matter how wise and necessary. One of the pleas he made for his scheme was, that something of the sort would be absolutely necessary for the preservation of the Federal Union, "which," he wrote, "in my poor opinion, will greatly depend upon the management of the revenue." He showed with his usual clearness the need of obtaining, for financial as well as for all other reasons, a firmer union, as the existing confederation bade fair to become, as its enemies had prophesied, a rope of sand. He also foretold graphically the misery that would ensue—and that actually did ensue—when the pressure from a foreign foe should cease, and the states should be resolved into a disorderly league of petty, squabbling communities. In ending he remarked bitterly: "The articles of confederation were formed when the attachment to Congress was warm and great. The framers of them, therefore, seem to have been only solicitous how to provide against the power of that body, which, by means of their foresight and care, now exists by mere courtesy and sufferance."
Although Morris was not able to convert Congress to the ways of sound thinking, his ability and clearness impressed themselves on all the best men; notably on Robert Morris,—who was no relation of his, by the way,—the first in the line of American statesmen who have been great in finance; a man whose services to our treasury stand on a par, if not with those of Hamilton, at least with those of Gallatin and John Sherman. Congress had just established four departments, with secretaries at the head of each. The two most important were the Departments of Foreign Affairs and of Finance. Livingstone was given the former, while Robert Morris received the latter; and immediately afterwards appointed Gouverneur Morris as Assistant Financier, at a salary of eighteen hundred and fifty dollars a year.