Robert Morris

Robert Morris Jr. (January 20, 1734 – May 8, 1806) was a British-born American merchant, investor, and politician, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Morris served in the Pennsylvania legislature, the Second Continental Congress, and the United States Senate. He was one of only two individuals (along with Roger Sherman) to sign the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution. From 1781 to 1784, he held the post of Superintendent of Finance of the United States, a role that earned him the title "Financier of the Revolution". Alongside Alexander Hamilton and Albert Gallatin, Morris is often regarded as a founder of the financial system of the United States.

Born in Liverpool, Morris was brought to North America by his father when he was 13 years old, quickly becoming a partner in a successful shipping firm based in Philadelphia. In the aftermath of the French and Indian War, Morris joined with other merchants in opposing British tax policies such as the 1765 Stamp Act. By 1775 he was the richest man in America. After the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, he helped procure arms and ammunition for the revolutionary cause, and in late 1775 he was chosen as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. As a member of Congress, he served on the Secret Committee of Trade, which handled the procurement of supplies, the Committee of Correspondence, which handled foreign affairs, and the Marine Committee, which oversaw the Continental Navy. Morris was a leading member of Congress until he resigned in 1778. Out of office, Morris refocused on his merchant career and won election to the Pennsylvania Assembly, where he became a leader of the "Republican" faction that sought alterations to the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Facing a difficult financial situation in the ongoing Revolutionary War, in 1781 Congress established the position of Superintendent of Finance to oversee financial matters. Morris accepted appointment as Superintendent of Finance and also served as Agent of Marine, from which he controlled the Continental Navy. He helped provide supplies to the Continental Army under General George Washington, enabling, with the help of frequent collaborator Haym Salomon, the decisive victory in the Battle of Yorktown. Morris also reformed government contracting and established the Bank of North America, the first congressionally chartered national bank to operate in the United States. Morris believed that the national government would be unable to achieve financial stability without the power to levy taxes and tariffs, but he was unable to convince all thirteen states to agree to an amendment to the Articles of Confederation. Frustrated by the weakness of the national government, Morris resigned as Superintendent of Finance in 1784. Morris was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1786.

In 1787, Morris was selected as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, which wrote and proposed a new constitution for the United States. Morris rarely spoke during the convention, but the constitution produced by the convention reflected many of his ideas. Morris and his allies helped ensure that Pennsylvania ratified the new constitution, and the document was ratified by the requisite number of states by the end of 1788. The Pennsylvania legislature subsequently elected Morris as one of its two inaugural representatives in the United States Senate. Morris declined Washington's offer to serve as the nation's first Treasury Secretary, instead suggesting Alexander Hamilton for the position. In the Senate, Morris supported Hamilton's economic program and aligned with the Federalist Party. During and after his service in the Senate, Morris went deeply into debt through speculating on land, leading into the Panic of 1796–1797. Unable to pay his creditors, he was confined in the Prune Street debtors' apartment adjacent to Walnut Street Prison from 1798 to 1801. After being released from prison, he lived a quiet, private life in a modest home in Philadelphia until his death in 1806.

Morris was born in Liverpool, England, on January 20, 1734. His parents were Robert Morris Sr., an agent for a shipping firm, and Elizabeth Murphet; biographer Charles Rappleye concludes that Morris was probably born out of wedlock. Until he reached the age of thirteen, Morris was raised by his maternal grandmother in England. In 1747, Morris immigrated to Oxford, Maryland, where his father had prospered in the tobacco trade. Two years later, Morris's father sent him to Philadelphia, then the most populous city in British North America, where Morris lived under the care of his father's friend, Charles Greenway.

Greenway arranged for Morris to become an apprentice at the shipping and banking firm of Philadelphia merchant Charles Willing. In 1750, Robert Morris Sr. died from an infected wound, leaving much of his substantial estate to his son. Morris impressed Willing and rose from a teenage trainee to become a key agent in Willing's firm. Morris traveled to Caribbean ports to expand the firm's business, and he gained a knowledge of trading and the various currencies used to exchange goods. He also befriended Thomas Willing, the oldest son of Charles Willing who was two years older than Morris and who, like Morris, had split his life between England and British North America. Charles Willing died in 1754, and in 1757 Thomas made Morris a full partner in the newly renamed firm of Willing Morris & Company.

Morris's shipping firm was just one of many such firms operating in Philadelphia, but Willing, Morris & Co. pursued several innovative strategies. The firm pooled with other shipping firms to insure vessels, aggressively expanded trade with India, and underwrote government projects through bonds and promissory notes. Ships of the firm traded with India, the Levant, the West Indies, Spanish Cuba, Spain, and Italy. The firm's business of import, export, and general agency made it one of the most prosperous in Pennsylvania. In 1784, Morris, with other investors, underwrote the voyage of the ship Empress of China, the first American vessel to visit the Chinese mainland.

Morris's partnership with Willing was established just after the outbreak of the French and Indian War, which hindered the usual supply of indentured servants from the British Isles to Pennsylvania. The most direct effect on the supply was action by Parliament to forbid immigration to the Americas, and simultaneously promote the slave trade. Many potential servants had been conscripted by the British Army to fight in Continental Europe, and a significant portion of the servants already in Pennsylvania were nearing the ends of their contracts. As such, there was a rapidly increasing demand in Pennsylvania for a supply of new slaves to compensate for the ongoing labor shortage. While Morris was a junior partner in the firm and Willing was pursuing a political career, Willing, Morris & Co. co-signed a petition calling for the repeal of Pennsylvania's tariff on imported slaves. In 1762, approximately 200 slaves were imported into Philadelphia, at the height of Pennsylvania's involvement in the Atlantic slave trade; most were brought in by Rhode Island merchants Mark Anthony DeWolf, Aaron Lopez, and Jacob Rivera.

As part of their commercial operations, Willing, Morris & Co. engaged in the slave trade. The firm advertised slave sales and directed company ships to purchase slaves from Africa to sell in British North America. One of the first ships the firm purchased, Nancy, was used to make two voyages to Africa to purchase slaves; the first voyage occurred in 1762, and resulted in the sale of approximately 170 slaves purchased from the Gold Coast in Wilmington, Delaware. Though it was profitable, this voyage did not make a large profit, and a second slave-trading voyage by Nancy resulted in her capture by French privateers. Willing, Morris & Co. also handled two slave auctions for other importers of slaves, offering 23 slaves for sale. Three years later, the firm advertised 17 slaves for sale who were brought from Africa on board the slave ship Marquis de Granby. The slaves were not sold in Philadelphia, as the owner took the ship and all the slaves to Jamaica. This was the last time Willing, Morris & Co. was involved in slave trade. During the Revolution Morris employed a French chief, and afterwards engaged a former slave under terms of indenture.

In early 1769, at age 35, Morris married 20-year-old Mary White, the daughter of a wealthy and prestigious lawyer and landholder. Mary gave birth to the couple's first of seven children in December 1769. (One son was Congressman Thomas Morris, whose wife was related to the Livingston and Van Rensselaer New York political families). Morris and his family lived on Front Street in Philadelphia and maintained a second home, known as "The Hills," on the Schuylkill River to the northwest of the city. He later purchased another rural manor, which he named Morrisville, that was located across the Delaware River from Trenton, New Jersey. The Morrises worshiped at the Anglican Christ Church, which was also attended by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Willing, and other leading citizens of Philadelphia. The Morris household employed several domestic workers and retained several slaves.

In addition to the children he had with Mary White, Morris fathered a daughter, Polly, out of wedlock around 1763. Morris supported Polly financially and remained in contact with her throughout her adult life. Morris also supported a younger half-brother, Thomas, whom Morris's father had sired out of wedlock shortly before his own death. Thomas eventually became a partner in Morris's shipping firm.

In 1765, the Parliament of Great Britain imposed the Stamp Act, a tax on transactions involving paper that proved widely unpopular in British North America. In one of his first major political acts, Morris joined with several other merchants in pressuring British agent John Hughes to refrain from collecting the new tax. Facing colonial resistance, Parliament repealed the tax, but it later implemented other policies designed to generate tax revenue from the colonies. During the decade after the imposition of the Stamp Act, Morris would frequently join with other merchants in protesting many of Parliament's taxation policies. Writing to a friend about his objections to British tax policies, Morris stated that "I am a native of England but from principle am American in this dispute." While his partner, Thomas Willing, served in various governmental positions, Morris declined to serve in any public office other than that of port warden (a position he shared with six other individuals), and he generally let Willing act as the public face of the firm.

In early 1774, in response to the Intolerable Acts, many colonists in British North America began calling for a boycott of British goods. In Philadelphia, Willing, Charles Thomson, and John Dickinson took the lead in calling for a congress of all the colonies to coordinate a response to British tax policies. Morris was not elected to the First Continental Congress, which convened in Philadelphia in August 1774, but he frequently met with the congressional delegates and befriended colonial leaders such as George Washington and John Jay. Morris generally sympathized with the position of the delegates who favored the reform of British policies but were unwilling to fully break with Britain. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress voted to create the Continental Association, an agreement to enforce a boycott against British goods beginning in December; it also advised each colony to establish committees to enforce the boycott. Morris was elected to the Philadelphia committee charged with enforcing the boycott.

In April 1775, the American Revolutionary War broke out following the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Shortly thereafter, the Second Continental Congress began meeting in Philadelphia, and Congress appointed George Washington to command the Continental Army. The Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly established the twenty-five member Committee of Safety to supervise defenses, and Morris was appointed to the committee. Morris became part of the core group of members that directed the committee and served as the committee's chairman when Benjamin Franklin was absent. Charged with obtaining gunpowder, Morris arranged a large-scale smuggling operation to avoid British laws designed to prevent arms and ammunition from being imported into the colonies. Due to his success at smuggling gunpowder for Pennsylvania, Morris also became the chief supplier of gunpowder to the Continental Army. Morris became increasingly focused on political affairs rather than business, and in October 1775 he won election to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly. Later in the year, the Provincial Assembly elected Morris as a delegate to Congress.

In Congress, Morris aligned with the less radical faction of delegates that protested British policies but continued to favor reconciliation with Britain. He was appointed to the Secret Committee of Trade, which supervised the procurement of arms and ammunition. As the revolutionary government lacked an executive branch or a civil service, the committees of Congress handled all government business. Biographer Charles Rappleye writes that the committee "handled its contracts in a clubby, often incestuous manner" that may have unfairly benefited politically connected merchants, including Morris. However, Rappleye also notes that the dangerous and secretive nature of a committee charged with obtaining contraband goods made it difficult for the committee to establish competitive bidding procedures for procurement contracts. In addition to his service on the Secret Committee of Trade, Morris was also appointed to the Marine Committee, which oversaw the Continental Navy, and the Committee of Secret Correspondence, which oversaw efforts to establish relations with foreign powers. From his position on the latter committee, Morris helped arrange for the appointment of Silas Deane as Congress's representative to France; Deane was charged with procuring supplies and securing a formal alliance with France.

Throughout 1776, Morris would emerge as a key figure on the Marine Committee; Rappleye describes him as the "de facto commander" of the Continental Navy. Morris favored a naval strategy of attacking Britain's "defenseless places" in an effort to divide Britain's numerically superior fleet. Along with Franklin, Dickinson, and John Adams, Morris helped draft the Model Treaty, which was designed to serve as a template for relations with foreign countries. Unlike Britain's mercantile trade policies, the Model Treaty emphasized the importance of free trade. In March 1776, after the death of Samuel Ward, Morris was named as the chairman of the Secret Committee of Trade. He established a network of agents, based in both the colonies and various foreign ports, charged with procuring supplies for the Continental war effort.

After leaving office, Morris once again devoted himself to business, but state and federal politics remained a factor in his life. After the Pennsylvania legislature stripped the Bank of North America of its charter, Morris won election to the state legislature and helped restore the bank's charter. Meanwhile, the United States suffered a sustained recession after the end of the Revolutionary War, caused by the lingering debt burden and new restrictions on trade imposed by the European powers. Some members of Congress, including those on the Board of Treasury, continued to favor amendments to the Articles of Confederation, but the states still refused to authorize major changes to the Articles.

In 1786, Morris was one of five Pennsylvania delegates selected to attend the Annapolis Convention, where delegates discussed ways to reform the Articles of Confederation. Though Morris ultimately declined to attend the convention, the delegates convinced Congress to authorize a convention in Philadelphia in May 1787 to amend the Articles. The Pennsylvania state legislature sent a delegation consisting of Morris, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Mifflin, Jared Ingersoll, and Ben Franklin to the Philadelphia Convention. With the exception of Franklin (who avoided aligning with either political faction in Pennsylvania), all of the Pennsylvania delegates were closely aligned with Morris's Republican faction, a reflection of Republican strength in the state legislature. Many of Morris's Nationalist allies from other states, including Hamilton, James Madison, John Dickinson, and Washington, would also attend the convention.

With Franklin ill, Morris opened the proceedings of the Philadelphia Convention on May 25. His motion to nominate Washington as chairman of the convention was backed by a unanimous vote. Morris consistently attended the meeting of the convention, but rarely spoke after the first day, instead allowing lawyers and others more experienced with the law to debate various issues. His primary goals, including a provision ensuring the federal government had the power to lay tariffs and taxes, were shared by the vast majority of delegates at the convention. On September 17, Morris signed the final document produced by the convention which, rather than amending the Articles, was intended to supplant the Articles as the new Constitution of the United States. Morris was one of just six individuals to sign both the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution.

Rather than seeking to block the new constitution, Congress simply forwarded it to each state to debate ratification. Morris's Republican faction, along with Federalist groups in other states, sought the ratification of the new federal Constitution. The Constitutionalists, who saw the new federal constitution as a threat to state sovereignty, joined with Anti-Federalists in other states in seeking to prevent the ratification of the Constitution. In elections held in October and November 1787, Morris's Federalist allies retained control of the state legislature and won a majority of the elections held to select delegates for the convention held to debate ratification of the Constitution. Due to a dispute with a business partner, Morris did not attend the ratification convention, which voted to ratify the Constitution in December 1787. By the end of 1788, the Constitution had been ratified by enough states to take effect. In September 1788, the Pennsylvania legislature elected Robert Morris and William Maclay, both of whom were aligned with the Federalists, as the state's first representatives in the United States Senate.

In the country's first presidential election, Washington was elected as the President of the United States. Washington offered the position of Secretary of the Treasury to Morris, but Morris declined the offer, instead suggesting Alexander Hamilton for the position. In the Senate, Morris pressed for many of the same policies he had sought as Superintendent of Finance: a federal tariff, a national bank, a federal mint, and the funding of the national debt. Congress agreed to implement the Tariff of 1789, which created a uniform impost on goods carried by foreign ships into American ports, but many other issues lingered into 1790. Among those issues were the site of the national capital and the fate of state debts. Morris sought the return of the nation's capital to Philadelphia and the federal assumption of state debts. Morris defeated Maclay's proposal to establish the capital in Pennsylvania at a site on the Susquehanna River west of Philadelphia, but James Madison defeated Morris's attempt to establish the capital just outside of Philadelphia.

Morris refocused on his trading concerns after leaving office as Superintendent of Finance, seeking especially to expand his role in the tobacco trade. He began suffering from financial problems in the late 1780s after a business partner mistakenly refused to honor bills issued by Morris, causing him to default on a loan.

In 1784 Morris was part of a syndicate that backed the sailing of the Empress of China (1783) for the China trade. (In 1787, Morris also sent the ex-warship Alliance to Canton, China as part of the China Trade.) As part of the effort to repay France for loans that financed the war, Morris contracted to supply 20,000 hogsheads of tobacco annually to France beginning in 1785. Shortly after these contracts were signed, Ambassador Thomas Jefferson took it upon himself to interfere with these arrangements, bringing about the collapse of the tobacco market. Financier James Swan on July 9, 1795, managed to do something Morris had been unable to do: the entire U.S. national debt to France of US$2,024,899 was paid in full. The United States no longer owed money to foreign governments, although it continued to owe money to private investors both in the United States and in Europe. This allowed the young United States to place itself on a sound financial footing.

From July 1778 to January 1780, Morris was agent, normally paid on commission, for John Holker (French consul general for the four states of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey). At the same time, he was appointed general agent of the Royal Navy of France, and, in this capacity, had to manage the logistics and finances of the French expeditionary force. In early 1780, they became partners in William Turnbull and Co. Turnbull had worked for the secret Pennsylvania Committee of Commerce and would manage operations on their behalf. In the monumental edition of the Robert Morris Papers, the list of Holker's associates (occasional or regular) is given in a note to volume 7. It is edifying: on the French side, Le Ray de Chaumont, Sabatier and Després, La Caze and Mallet, and the bankers Le Couteulx and Ferdinand Grand (Holker senior, Antoine Garvey, and Baudard de Saint-James, associate in Sabatier's business, are not listed). On the American side, three of the founding fathers, John Langdon, Thomas Fitzsimons, and Robert Morris, Simeon and Barnabas Deane, brothers of Silas Deane, William Duer, Matthew Ridley, Mark Pringle, Jonathan Williams Sr. and Jr., Stacey Hepburn, William Smith of Baltimore, and Benjamin Harrison V of Virginia are listed. Special mention for Philadelphia merchant Thomas Fitzsimons, one of the very few Catholic signatories of the Constitution, appreciated for his wisdom by both Holker and Morris, and who would serve as arbitrator in their disputes. In fact, Holker's French partners fell into a double trap: lured by their yield, they invested part of the transferred funds in Congressional loan certificates that yielded 6%, without realizing that these state funds would be transformed into junk bonds, and, strengthened by the reassuring words of the authorities, they convinced themselves that the currency would rise, while Morris, for his own account, did the exact opposite: he did not keep any cash and invested it as soon as he had some in goods; he thus avoided losses linked to currency depreciation. The blow of the club was delivered in March 1780: "Congress officially devalued "old emission" currency at a ratio of forty to one of species, thereby repudiating a significant proportion of the debt it represented". Holker's partners therefore suffered considerable losses, and they would fight in vain for years to obtain compensation. Chaumont, on the verge of ruin, had to request a decree preventing French creditors from seizing assets. After his resignation, Holker faced two challenges: settling his accounts with Robert Morris, and bouncing back to absorb the losses he had suffered. In January 1784, Morris submitted accounts, but the settlement would stumble over the claim for compensation for the depreciation suffered by Holker. Relations between the two partners deteriorated rapidly, and Holker wanted to appeal to the courts. This dispute would lead to a deterioration in Franco-American relations, the French side noting Morris' stiffening and becoming increasingly concerned about the repayment of debts contracted by the United States. The interests of a foreign government which was both ally and creditor expanded the dispute from the private realm into the public arena. Holker consulted Thomas Fitzsimons, and the latter explained to him that arbitration was preferable. This arbitration was entrusted to five Philadelphia merchants, including Fitzsimons himself; he would have to wait five years for it. The verdict of April 1789 exonerated Morris from any liability for the depreciations suffered, and finally decided that Holker owed Morris the very symbolic sum of 1,500 Pennsylvania pounds. In 1787, Morris was sued in Virginia by Carter Braxton for £28,257; the lawsuit continued for eight years before commissioners were appointed, then Morris appealed. Finally, Virginia's Court of Appeals led by Edmund Pendleton decided mostly in favor of Braxton before Morris was forced into bankruptcy by his own continued land speculations (although Morris as late as 1800 believed that he should have won £20,000). Morris became increasingly fixated on land speculation, reaching his first major real estate deal in 1790, when he acquired much of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase in western New York. He realized a substantial profit the following year when he sold the land to The Pulteney Association, a group of British land speculators led by Sir William Johnstone Pulteney. Morris used the money from this sale to purchase the remainder of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase, then turned around and sold much of that land to the Holland Land Company, a group of Dutch land speculators. These early successes encouraged Morris to pursue greater profits through increasingly large and risky land acquisitions.

On March 7, 1791, Morris obtained title to a lot from John Dickinson and wife; on March 9, 1793, the site was surveyed; it was not until 1794 that he began construction of a mansion on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia designed by architect of Washington, D.C., Pierre Charles L'Enfant; it was to occupy an entire block between Chestnut Street and Walnut Street on the western edge of Philadelphia. The structure was of red brick and marble lining. Besides Land Speculation, Morris founded several canal companies: similar to the Potomac Company, two Pennsylvania canal companies were set up to try to link the produce of the western lands with the eastern markets; they were the Schuylkill and Susquehanna Navigation Company, chartered September 29, 1791, and the Delaware and Schuylkill Canal Company, chartered April 10, 1792. Morris was president of both companies; he was also involved with a steam engine company and launched a hot air balloon from his garden on Market Street. He had the first iron rolling mill in America. His icehouse was the model for one Washington installed at Mount Vernon. He backed the new Chestnut Street Theater and had a greenhouse where his staff cultivated lemon trees. In early 1793, Morris purchased shares in a land company led by John Nicholson, the comptroller general of Pennsylvania, beginning a deep business partnership between Nicholson and Morris.

Later in 1793, Morris, Nicholson, and James Greenleaf jointly purchased thousands of lots in the recently established District of Columbia. They subsequently purchased millions of acres in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, Georgia, and the Carolinas; in each case, they went into debt to make the purchases, with the intent of quickly reselling the land to realize a profit. Morris and his partners struggled to re-sell their lands, and Greenleaf dropped out from the partnership in 1795. Morris realized a profit by selling his lots in the District of Columbia in 1796, but he and Nicholson still owed their creditors approximately $12 million (about $228 million in 2025). By Morris's own admission the beginning of his bankruptcy began with the failure of John Warder & Co. of Dublin and Donald and Burton of London in the spring of 1793.

Morris was unable to pay his debts, and he remained in debtors' prison for three and a half years. Morris was released from prison in August 1801 after Congress passed its first bankruptcy legislation, the Bankruptcy Act of 1800 in part to get Morris out of prison. At the time of his release, three commissioners found that he had debts of $2,948,711.11; the proceedings were certified October 15, 1801, after 2/3 of his creditors agreed to the discharge of Morris. On December 4, 1801, a certificate of bankruptcy was confirmed, but he remained financially destitute. Governor Morris, who served as Robert Morris's representative to the Holland Land Company, was able to attach a provision to the sale of some land that gave Mary Morris a $1,500 (equivalent to $29,000 in 2025) per year annuity; this annuity allowed Mary to rent a small house in Philadelphia far away from the city center.

One of the few assets Morris had left was his father's old worn out gold watch which he had inherited at the start of his career; Morris managed to leave this timepiece in his will to his son Robert Jr. Morris died on May 8, 1806, in Philadelphia. No public ceremonies marked his death. He was buried in the churchyard of Christ Church.

Biographer Charles Rappleye writes that Morris "was too rich to be a folk hero, and the ultimate failure of his personal fortune robbed him of any Midas-like mystique." Some historians have largely ignored Morris's role in founding the United States, while others regard him as the leader of a conservative, anti-democratic faction of the Founding Fathers. Robert E. Wright and David J. Cowen describe Morris as a "fallen angel" who "almost single-handedly financed the final years" of the American Revolution before falling into "ignominy" for defaulting on his debts. Historian William Hogeland writes "given his seminal performance to victory in the Revolution, as well as to forming the nation, Robert Morris isn't as well known by Americans as he ought to be."

Morris's portrait appeared on US$1,000 greenbacks from 1862 to 1863 and on the $10 silver certificate from 1878 to 1880. Institutions named in honor of Morris include Robert Morris University and the Robert Morris Experiential College at Roosevelt University. Mount Morris, New York, the location of a large flood control dam on the Genesee River, is named in his honor. A number of ships in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard have been named USS Morris or USRC Morris for him. Morrisville, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor. The Morris-Taney-class cutter was named for Morris and Roger Taney. A statue of Morris stands at Independence National Historical Park, and a monument to Morris, Washington, and Haym Salomon stands at Heald Square in Chicago, Illinois.

Summerseat, Morris's former estate in Morrisville, is listed as a National Historic Landmark. Lemon Hill, a Federal-style estate listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is located on a parcel of land formerly owned by Morris. Part of the Liberty Bell Center is on land that was formerly part of the estate known as the President's House. Robert Morris holds the curious distinction as the only Founding Father whose house is a national memorial, but his life is not interpreted at the site.

Morris is included in the Washington, D.C., Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence.

In April 2023, vandals wrote the words "Human Trafficer" on a Morris statue located at Independence National Historical Park (INHP) in Philadelphia. The INHP said the graffiti was written using felt marker, and the aged and weathered marble absorbed the markings. A material conservator used lasers to lighten the markings but was unable to remove them.