Gouverneur Morris (1752-1816), American statesman and diplomat, was one of the important authors of the U.S. Constitution.

Gouverneur Morris was born on Jan. 31, 1752, in his family's manor house at Morrisania, N.Y. After graduating from King's College, New York City, in 1768, he studied law under the chief justice of New York and in October 1771 was licensed as an attorney.

Although some members of his family remained loyal to the British crown, Morris supported the rebel cause during the American Revolution. In 1775 he served as a member of New York's provincial congress and in the following year sat in its constitutional convention. With John Jay and Robert R. Livingston, he drafted New York's first constitution. In 1778 he was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he served as chairman of some of the Congress's most important standing committees. His authorship of a number of essays on public...