Scott Greenberger's 'The Forsaken Founder'

By Kevin Seabrooke

This sweeping biography restores Gouverneur Morris to his rightful place in the top tier of America’s Founding Fathers. As a vital architect of the early republic, Morris helped provision George Washington’s starving Continental Army, designed early American currency, and spearheaded the Constitutional Convention’s Committee of Style—penning the final draft and its iconic preamble, “We the People.” Beyond standing as the convention’s most passionate opponent of slavery, Morris led an extraordinarily adventurous life: serving as U.S. envoy to France through the bloody Reign of Terror, championing the Erie Canal, and laying out Manhattan’s street grid. Equally famous for his wooden leg, high-society romance inside the Louvre, and a raunchy, coded secret diary, Morris emerges as one of the revolutionary era’s most brilliant, complex, and colorful figures.

The Forsaken Founder: The Life and Times of Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery and Survived the Reign of Terror (Scott Greenberger, 37 Ink-Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, 352 pp., Sept. 1, 2026 $30 HC)