A Letter from from the Grave by Founding Father Gouverneur Morris (Imagined)
To the Citizens of These United States,
Though I write to you from the distant chambers of history, my voice echoes with the same urgency that stirred me to pen the words which frame your Constitution. It was I who scribed, with conviction and clarity, the Preamble—those now-sacred words that begin: “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union…”
Today, I see that Union strained. Not from without, but from within—from a people who have, in many corners, forgotten the meaning of We. I ask you now to remember.
We was never meant to be narrow. It was not meant to be the some, the few, or the privileged. We was meant to be ever-expanding. To grow, to include, to stretch toward the fullness of the promise this republic dared to imagine.
In my time, I was called a radical for opposing slavery, for condemning the bondage of men by men. I called it a nefarious institution, incompatible with liberty. I did so not for praise but for conscience. Today, you must do the same. Not with slavery, but with all forces that divide and dehumanize.
The middle ground, the center, the great civic commons—that is not weakness. It is the strength of your republic. Beware those who profit from division. Beware those who tell you compromise is surrender. I tell you this: the true surrender is to faction, to hatred, and to fear.
Let We the People mean something again. Let it include your neighbor. Let it include your rival. Let it even include those whose votes oppose yours, so long as they, too, pledge to this Union.
I wrote those words to unify a fragile nation. You must now defend them to preserve it.
With abiding hope,
Gouverneur Morris
Founding Father
Framer of the Constitution
Author of the Preamble
Patriot of the Union
Further Reading: Writings of Gouverneur Morris
- Founders Online (U.S. National Archives): Morris’s letters and records
- Library of Congress Collection: Gouverneur Morris Papers
- Avalon Project (Yale Law): Constitutional Convention Papers
- Project Gutenberg: Search “Gouverneur Morris” for public domain essays and speeches
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