Robert Morris: Financier of the American
Revolution
By Charles Rappleye
(Simon & Schuster, 530 pages, $30)
The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s Obsession
and the Creation of an American
Culture
By Joshua Kendall
(G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 355 pages, $26.95)
Robert Morris and Noah Webster are Founders of the American
Republic. In Charles Rappleye’s
Robert Morris: Financier of the American
Revolution and Joshua Kendall’s
The Forgotten Founding Father: Noah Webster’s
Obsession and the Creation of an American Culture, we are
presented with two men of vastly different personalities and
talents who helped to shape our nation. Their patriotism,
entrepreneurial skills and self-interest has provided a model for
our common culture. Though their contributions differed radically,
both appreciated capitalism and used the free market to create a
truly United States.
Morris and Webster both wanted a strong federal
government. The former saw it coming through a common currency
regulated by a national treasury. The latter envisioned a nation
bound by a common language which would form an American
identity.
Winning the American Revolution required money which the
colonial government did not have. The stories of Washington’s
ragtag army, with its lack of provisions and minor mutinies, are
part of the lore surrounding the colonists’ victory over their
well-supplied British counterparts. This original financial crisis
was due to the Continental Congress’s inability to tax the colonies
and the worthless Continental script that was being printed to pay
the army. The present decline in the value of the dollar is similar
to the monetary crisis of the Revolution since now, as then, we
have fiat money with neither gold nor silver to back it
up.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that without the
financial acumen and personal credit risks taken by Robert Morris
of Philadelphia (1734-1806) the Revolution would have failed.
Charles Rappleye says, “Morris committed his own fortune to the
demands of the national cause” and quotes Morris as
saying:
“My personal Credit, which thank Heaven I have preserved
through all the tempests of the War, has been substituted for that
which the Country had lost,” Morris explained to a friend. “I am
now striving to transfer that Credit to the Public.”
Noah Webster (1758-1843), meanwhile, was instrumental in
strengthening our national identity by compiling a truly American
vocabulary with words, definitions, spelling and grammar germane to
the new nation. Kendall writes, “But Webster had done more than
just improve on the spelling books of his British predecessors. He
had also helped give birth to a new language, which in turn would
soon unite a fledgling nation.”
Webster told George Washington, “our nation is but a name
and our confederation a cobweb.” He gained Washington’s support for
his projects because Washington realized that nothing better unites
a people than a common tongue. His insights and contribution helped
to meld the Colonies into one nation. As Kendall states:
Together, Noah Webster, Jr., the man of words, and George
Washington, the man of action, would continue to work to unify
America. Recognizing Webster’s remarkable knack for getting
Americans to think of themselves as American, Washington relied
time and time again on his trusted policy advisor.
Kendall describes Webster as having a penchant for
demography, collecting data and studying the etymology of words.
His obsessive-compulsive behavior was perfectly suited for his
magnum opus — Webster’s American Dictionary of the English
Language (1828). Those who are seeking legislation, i.e.,
The English Language Unity Act, 2011, to make English the
official language of the U.S. can claim both Webster and Washington
as supporters.
Morris was an English émigré and an experienced merchant.
He became a partner of Thomas Willing and Co., a famous
Philadelphia Trading Company. Although he was originally hesitant
to break with England he eventually signed the Declaration of
Independence. His international connections lent itself to aiding
the financial crisis in his home colony of Pennsylvania and the
Continental Government during the Revolution. He became a key
player as a member of the Secret Committee which funded the
munitions for the Colonies. Later, under the Articles of the
Confederation (1781-1782), he was made the Superintendent of
Finance. Washington called him “The most powerful man in
America.”
Morris and Webster are models of the entrepreneurial
spirit present at the nation’s beginning. Both showed creativity
and a willingness to work, as well as to take the risks necessary
to succeed. Rappleye states, “To Morris, the primary role
government should take in affairs of commerce was to get out of the
way.” Morris is quoted as saying “I assert boldly that commerce
ought to be as free as the air, to place it in the most
advantageous state to mankind in general.” This stands as an
indictment against the present government interventions in our
financial system. The Dodd-Frank Act, 2011, for example,
expanded government regulation of the market which causes a decline
in U.S. competitiveness, innovation, and economic
growth.
Morris was a pivotal figure in establishing a Bank of
North America (1781). He knew that if the young nation was to
flourish then private credit had to be established. Many feared
that the banks were only a tool for the rich to grow richer.
Because of this, the State of Pennsylvania was on the precipice of
revoking its charter. Morris, however, according to Rappleye,
“helped turn the tide of popular opinion against state intervention
in the market.” He says, Morris “opened the door to a new era of
commerce, limited state sovereignty, and social
mobility.”
Webster also contributed to American enterprise through
his persistence in getting copyright laws passed in his home state
of Connecticut and through his prodding in six other states. He
strongly supported the new Constitution because, he said, “This
constitution will place the regulation of literary property in the
power of Congress and of course the existing laws of the several
states will be superseded by a federal law.” With Webster’s
support, a national copyright law passed Congress in 1790. This of
course protected intellectual property and encouraged Americans to
develop their talents and grow in wealth for their
efforts.
Toward the end of his life, Kendall believes that Webster
lost touch with the promise of America because of his acceptance of
inequality. As Kendall puts it:
Inequality, an embittered Webster had come to believe, was
inherently good. While, as the papers reported, he still “retained
the full power of his faculties,” Webster had lost touch with the
promise of America, which he himself had championed a half century
earlier. It was the expert definer rather than his fellow
countrymen who could no longer appreciate the true meaning of
“liberty” and “equality.”
But it is more likely that Webster was only being faithful
to the Founders’ belief in a meritocracy where equal opportunity,
as opposed to equal distribution, was the key to national greatness
and personal fulfillment.
Reflecting on his own life, Webster saw that being poor
need not be a permanent condition in America. The present
egalitarian ethos now regnant in our country discourages personal
initiative and (as Alexis de Tocqueville feared) encourages
mediocrity. It also creates serial poverty. The tragedy of this
equalizing philosophy is seen in the 2011 Budget Crisis which was
brought about by an entitlements mentality and relies on taxing the
rich for its sustainability.
Morris seems to have a handle on the essence of America
which is based on the truth of American capitalism in which
financial inequality is a fact of life. As Rappleley puts
it:
More than that, Morris installed his pragmatic, realist,
modernist vision of a free people united by the principles of
economic self-interest and not by bonds of state or political
authority. For better or worse, that is the feature that
distinguishes America from every other nation established in the
New World, and set America on its course to becoming the economic
powerhouse we know today.
Politicians would do well to read both books.
