Background
Morgan Lewis was born on October 16, 1754 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the second son of Francis Lewis and Elizabeth Annesley, of New York.
jurist military politician Soldier
Morgan Lewis was born on October 16, 1754 in New York City, New York, United States. He was the second son of Francis Lewis and Elizabeth Annesley, of New York.
His early schooling was at home and in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and he was graduated at the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1773.
Lewis was reading law at the time of the outbreak of the Revolution. After a summer of volunteer service in 1775 at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in New York, he was in the winter and spring of 1776, major in the 2nd Regiment of the "New York Line. " From June 1776 till the end of the war he was deputy quartermaster-general for the New York Department and was chief of staff with Gates at Ticonderoga and at Saratoga.
Resuming his legal studies at the close of the war he was admitted to the bar, and he also took his first steps in politics by successfully running for the Assembly in 1789-1790 and in 1792. He was attorney-general from November 1791 to December 24, 1792, and third justice of the supreme court of New York from the latter date to October 28, 1801, when he was promoted to the chief-justiceship. In the discharge of the duties of these offices his record was perhaps not especially distinguished, but certainly respectable.
In 1804 his nomination to the governorship by the Republicans (practically dictated by De-Witt Clinton) projected Lewis into quite a different scene. The exceptional situations both of the Federalists and of Aaron Burr enabled him, it is true, to win decisively over the latter after a campaign of unexampled virulence. But for vigorous exercise of a governor's power and the development and maintenance of party leadership, the sinuosities and the ruthlessness of New York politics at that period called for a disposition and for capacities which apparently Lewis did not possess. Clinton turned against him. Both factions, the Lewisites, or "Quids, " and the Clintonians toyed with Federalist support, and each in turn captured the council of appointment and used its powers in savagely proscriptive fashion. As it proved, Lewis's tenderness for the Livingstons in patronage matters and his depo-position of Clinton from the New York City mayoralty were acts of rashness; and the victory of Tompkins in the gubernatorial campaign of 1807 crowned Clinton's determination to subjugate the Livingston influence.
As the War of 1812 approached Lewis was enabled to return to politics for terms in the state Senate and for a seat on the council of appointment. During the war he was quartermaster-general and in 1813 major-general in service on the Niagara frontier. In this campaign his age and, above all, the conditions of intrigue in the high command, forbade his winning distinction, and in 1814 he was in command of the region about New York City. Whatever the extent or consequences of his errors or misfortunes in the field of party warfare, Lewis took an enlightened and frequently generous view of the duties and privileges of one in public station.
His later years were filled with activities of a more or less public character. He was a pillar of Masonry in the period of strong agitation against the order. He was also president of the New York Historical Society, 1832-1836, president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati, 1839-1844, and one of the founders of New York University. He died in his ninetieth year in New York City.
He was a member of the Republican party.
Lewis married, May 11, 1779, Gertrude, daughter of Robert R. and Margaret Beekman Livingston of Clermont. This alliance with the "Livingston interest, " coupled with his honorable, if hardly brilliant, military record, practically set the conditions of his public career.