olutionary body was organised, or for
whatever purpose, Congress, Convention, or Committee of Safety, he
became a member of it. Six years younger than Jay, and six years older
than Hamilton, he seemed to complete that remarkable New York trio, so
fertile in mental resources and so successful in achievement. He did
not, like Jay, outline a constitution, but he believed, with Jay, in
balancing wealth against numbers, and in contending for the protection
of the rights of property against the spirit of democracy. It is
interesting to study these young men, so different in temperament, yet
thinking alike and acting together for a quarter of a century--Jay,
gentle and modest; Hamilton, impetuous and imperious; Morris,
self-confident and conceited; but on all essential matters of state,
standing together like a tripod, firm and invincible. In his distrust
of western influences, however, Morris was more conservative than Jay
or Hamilton. He was broad and liberal toward the original thirteen
States, but he wanted to subordinate the balance of the country to
their control. He regarded the people who might seek homes west of the
Alleghanies with something of the suspicion Jay entertained for the
propertyless citizens of New York. The day would come, he believed,
when those untutored, backwoods settlers would outnumber their
brethren on the Atlantic coast, and he desired some provision in the
Constitution which would permit the minority to rule such a majority.
If these views shrivelled his statesmanship, it may be said to his
credit that they discovered a prophetic gift most uncommon in those
days, giving him the power to see a great empire of people in the
fertile valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries.[79] Fifteen
years later Robert R. Livingston expressed the belief that not in a
century would a white man cross the Father of Waters.

[Footnote 79: Gouverneur Morris seemed to find history-making places.
With Washington and Greene he opposed the Conway cabal; with Jay and
Livingston he drafted the Constitution of the State; with Hamilton and
Madison he stood for the Federal Constitution, the revision of its
style being committed to his pen. Then Washington needed him, first in
England, afterward as minister to France; and when Monroe relieved him
in 1794 he travelled leisurely through Europe for four years, meeting
its distinguished writers and statesmen, forming friendships with
Madame De Stael and the Neckers, aiding and