Mof-Mor: Moffitt through Morris

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


MOFFITT, Lemuel,  Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1838-39.


MONROE, James, 1758-1831, Fifth President of the United States.  Monroe supported colonization as President.  He became President of the Virginia auxiliary in Loudoun County of the American Colonization Society.  Got federal support for the Colonization Society.

(Burin, Eric. Slavery and the Peculiar Solution: A History of the American Colonization Society. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2005, pp. 11, 14-15; Campbell, Penelope. Maryland in Africa: The Maryland State Colonization Society, 1831-1857. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press,1971, p. 7; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 358-362; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 87; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 4, 48, 51-53, 62, 107, 108; Longacre, James B. & James Herring, National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.  Philadelphia: American Academy of Fine Arts, 1834-1839)


MONTEITH, John M., Elyria, Ohio, abolitionist.  Manager and founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society, December 1833.

(Abolitionist, Volume I, No. XII, December, 1833)


MONTGOMERY, J. H., Augusta, Georgia, jurist, Supreme Courts of Georgia.  Member, Augusta auxiliary of the American Colonization Society. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 71)


MONTGOMERY, James (December 22, 1814- December 6, 1871), Ashtabula County, Ohio, radical/militant abolitionist and jayhawker, Union Army Colonel in the Civil War. In 1854, became leader of a local Free State organization.  After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, he purchased a claim at Mound City, Linn County, Kansas.  Although pro-slavery settlers were in the majority in that part of the Territory, Montgomery emerged as a leader of the minority. He organized Free-State men into a "Self-Protective Company" in 1857, which drove pro-slavery advocates from the county.

(Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 369; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 97)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 97:

MONTGOMERY, JAMES (December 22, 1814- December 6, 1871), soldier and jayhawker, was born in Ashtabula County, Ohio, whither his parents had emigrated from New York. He was a great-grandson of James Montgomery, a Scotch Highland chieftain who came to America by way of Ireland. After receiving an academic education in Ohio, he moved to Kentucky in 1837 where he taught school and entered the ministry of the "Campbellite" church. In 1852 he emigrated with his second wife to Missouri, but soon after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill he purchased a claim at Mound City, Linn County, Kansas. Pro-slavery settlers were in the majority in the southeastern part of the Territory, and Montgomery soon became the recognized leader of the minority. He organized Free-State men into a "Self-Protective Company" in 1857, which drove pro-slavery advocates from the county and made predatory excursions into Missouri. He made several attempts to destroy Fort Scott, where a pro-slavery district judge pursued a policy of discrimination, and on one occasion he collided with Federal troops. Disturbances in the "infected district," some of which Montgomery created, were eventually quelled by the intervention of Governor Denver. In 1860 Montgomery and eastern associates planned to rescue two of John Brown's men imprisoned at Charles Town, Virginia (now West Virginia), but the scheme ' did not materialize. He was elected in 1857 to the "state" Senate under the Topeka constitution, but was defeated for the Territorial House of Representatives two years later. He represented Linn County in the Republican state convention of April 1860.

On July 24, 1861, Montgomery was commissioned colonel of the 3rd Kansas Volunteer Infantry which operated as a part of "Lane's brigade" in southeastern Kansas and western Missouri. His regiment soon gained a reputation for jay hawking or plundering. On April 3, 1862, the 3rd was consolidated with other regiments to form the 10th Kansas with Montgomery colonel. Early in 1863 he was authorized to raise a colored regiment in South Carolina. From Hiltonhead he made expeditions into Georgia and Florida, liberated slaves, and destroyed Confederate property. In 1864 he returned to Kansas and was chosen colonel of the 6th Militia Regiment when its commander refused to lead it against General Sterling Price. As a fighter Montgomery excelled in bushwhacker tactics. With limited mental powers, he was daring and fearless, and usually fought without having formed a plan of campaign. At the close of the Civil War he retired to his farm in Linn County, abandoned the "Campbellite" faith, became a First-Day Adventist, and preached that doctrine at various places in Kansas. He died at Mound City.

[A few of Montgomery's letters are preserved in the Kansas State Historical Library at Topeka. Reports of his military activities are scattered through the Official Records. Wm. P. Tomlinson, Kansas in Eighteen Fifty-eight (1859), contains a chapter on his early Kansas career. Further sources include: A. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (1883); D. W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas (1886); W. E. Connelley, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans (1911), volumes II and III; E. S. W. Drought, "James Montgomery," Trans. Kansas State Historical Society, volume VI (1900); "Colonel Montgomery and His Letters," Kansas State Historical Society Collections, volume XIII (1915); and scattered references in the Transactions and Collections of the State Historical Society ]

W. H.S-n.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 369:

MONTGOMERY, James, pioneer, born in Ashtabula county, Ohio, 22 December, 1814; died in Linn county, Kansas, 6 December, 1871. He came with his family early in life to Kentucky, and taught, ultimately becoming a Campbellite preacher. Later he devoted himself to farming, but in 1854 went to southern Kansas, where he was one of the earliest settlers. His residence in Linn county was burned by the Missourians in 1856, and this resulted in his taking an active part in the disturbances that followed. The retaliatory visits into Missouri were frequently led by him, and his discretion, courage, and acknowledged ability gained for him the confidence and support of the southern counties. His enrolled company included nearly 500 men, all of whom were old residents of the territory, and consequently familiar with the peculiar mode of fighting that was followed on the border. Captain Montgomery was one of the acknowledged leaders of the free-state cause during 1857-'61. Next to John Brown he was more feared than any other, and a contemporary sketch of the “Kansas Hero,” as he was then called, says: “Notwithstanding every incentive to retaliate actuates them to demand blood for blood, yet Montgomery is able to control and direct them. He truly tempers justice with mercy, and he has always protected women and children from harm, and has never shed blood except in conflict or in self-defence.” In 1857 he represented his county in the Kansas senate, and at other times he was a member of the legislature. At the beginning of the civil war he was made colonel of the 10th Kansas volunteers, but soon afterward was given command of the 1st North Carolina colored volunteers. These troops he led on a raid from Hilton Head into Georgia in July, 1863, and at the battle of Olustee, Florida, on 20 February, 1864, was one of the few officers that escaped with his life. Horace Greeley says of his regiment and the 54th Massachusetts: “It was admitted that these two regiments had saved our little army from being routed.” At the close of the war he returned to Kansas and passed the last years of his life at his home in Linn county. Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


MOORE, Cornelius, Ohio.  Traveling agent for the American Colonization Society in Oho in 1834. 

(Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, p. 140)


MOORE, E.D., Kingston, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Abolition Society, Vice-President, 1839-40.


MOORE, Ester, Maryland native, abolitionist, original member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society

(Yellin, Jean Fagan and John C. Van Horne (Eds). The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 69, 161)


MOORE, George W., New York, abolitionist, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


MOORE, John, New York, abolitionist, American Abolition Society.

(Radical Abolitionist, Volume 1, No. 1, New York, August 1855)


MOORE, Joseph, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1857-1864.


MOORE, Lindley Murray, 1788-1871, New York, educator, abolitionist leader, temperance activist, Society of Friends, Quaker.  Married to abolitionist, reformer, Abigail Lydia Mott.  Co-founded and was first president and recording secretary of the Rochester Anti-Slavery Society.  Wrote abolitionist book, Autographs of Freedom, 1853.

(Sorin, Gerald. The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Corporation, 1971)


MOORE, Risdon, Speaker of the Illinois State Legislature.  Abolitionist, manumitted his slaves.  Highly criticized for anti-slavery advocacy. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 93)


MOORHEAD, James Kennedy, 1806-1884.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  In Congress from December 1859-March, 1869.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 385; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 147-148; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 147-148:

MOORHEAD, JAMES KENNEDY (September 7, 1806-March 6, 1884), Civil War congressman from Pennsylvania, canal builder, and pioneer in commercial telegraphy, was born in Halifax, Dauphin County, Pa. His father, William Moorhead, had emigrated from Ireland and settled in the United States in 1798. In 1814 he was appointed by President James Madison collector of internal revenue for the tenth district of Pennsylvania, but he died in 1817, leaving his wife, Elizabeth (Kennedy) Young Moorhead, a widow with several children to support and no other form of income than that which could be obtained from a farm. Under these circumstances, James's schooling ended when he was eleven years old after he had completed two years in the district school in Harrisburg. At fourteen he had the full responsibility of the farm and Moorhead's ferry. Two years later he served as an apprentice to a tanner, but he never followed the trade. Having gained a fair knowledge of building and a familiarity with water transportation, he offered a low bid and obtained the contract for the construction of the Susquehanna branch of the Pennsylvania Canal-a job which netted him almost four hundred dollars. He then remained as superintendent of the Juniata division and was the first to place a passenger packet on the system. During the ten years he spent in navigating the canal he gained a knowledge of the problems involved in managing canal transportation and in 1839 he began a connection with the Monongahela N avigation Company in Pittsburgh. In 1846 he became president of the company, retaining the position until his death thirty-eight years later. In this capacity he built many dams, locks, and reservoirs in Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Kentucky, and earned for himself the title "Old Slackwater" because of the slackwater dams. In 1840 he established the Union Cotton Factory in what is now the Northside district of Pittsburgh. Nine years later the factory burned along with his house. He rebuilt the latter but it was again destroyed in 1853 by fire. At this time he also owned a part interest in the Novelty Works in Pittsburgh. Moorhead was one of the first to appreciate the possibilities of commercial telegraphy and it was largely through his efforts and direction, dating from 1853, that lines were established between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. The operating company, of which he was president, was the Atlantic & Ohio Telegraph Company. He was also the president of the various companies owning lines to Cincinnati and Louisville. Afterward, when these lines were consolidated, they formed the basis of the Western Union System. In politics Moorhead was an active member of the Democratic party of that day and for a short time held an appointment under President Van Buren as deputy postmaster of Pittsburgh (1840-41). But in the trying years from 1854 to 1858 he left the party and aided in the formation of the Republican party. In 1859 he was its successful candidate for Congress and served continuously in the lower house from 1859 to 1869. During the term of his membership he served on several important committees -commerce, national armories, manufactures, naval affairs, and ways and means-and was chairman of the two first named. In 1868 he served in his last political position, as delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago which nominated Ulysses S. Grant.

Moorhead always exhibited a great interest in the affairs of his church, the Presbyterian, in which he was the ruling elder, and in 1884 he went to Belfast, Ireland, as a delegate to the Pan-Presbyterian Council. Shortly afterward, upon his return to Pittsburgh, he died. He had lived to celebrate with his wife, Jane Logan, to whom he was married December 17, 1829, their golden anniversary. Their family consisted of two sons and three daughters. Moorhead's native ability was the deciding factor in his success, overcoming almost total lack of material means. He brought to each task the experience gained from a previous undertaking and thus advanced step by step through his own efforts to a position of responsibility at the head of a large navigation company.

[Memorial Volume: Jas. Kennedy Moorhead (privately printed, 1885); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); Erasmus Wilson, ed., Standard History of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania (1898); the Pittsburg Dispatch and Pittsburgh Post, March 7, 1884.]

A. I.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 385:

MOORHEAD, James Kennedy, congressman, born in Halifax, Dauphin county, Pennsylvania, 7 September, 1806; died in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 6 March, 1884. He received a limited education, spending his youth on a farm, and was apprenticed to a tanner. He was a contractor for building the Susquehanna branch of the Pennsylvania canal, became superintendent of the Juniata division, and was the first to place a passenger packet on this line. In 1836 he removed to Pittsburg and established there the Union cotton-factory. In 1838 he was appointed adjutant-general of the state, and in 1840 he became postmaster of Pittsburg. He was elected to congress as a Republican, holding his seat from 5 December, 1859, till 3 March, 1869, and serving on the committees on commerce, national armories, manufactures, naval affairs, and ways and means. In 1868 he was a delegate to the National Republican convention at Chicago. He was identified with the principal educational and charitable institutions of Pittsburg, was president of its chamber of commerce, of the Monongahela navigation company, and several telegraph companies, and was a delegate to the Pan-Presbyterian council in Belfast, Ireland, in 1884. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 385.


MOREL, Junius C., c. 1806, African American, former slave, educator, reformer, civil rights activist, editor.  Wrote numerous articles for African American papers.  Served as an agent for Frederick Douglass’s Northern Star.  Member of Young Men’s Anti-Slavery Society.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 8, p. 271)


MOREY, Henry Lee, abolitionist.


MORGAN, Edwin Dennison, 1811-1883, merchant, soldier, statesman.  Member of the Whig Party, Anti-Slavery Faction.  Republican U.S. Senator from New York.  Chairman of the Republican National Committee, 1856-1864.  Governor of New York, 1858-1862.  Commissioned Major General of Volunteers, he raised 223,000 troops for the Union Army.  U.S. Senator, 1863-1869.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 398; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 168-169; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 825; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 168-169:

MORGAN, EDWIN DENISON (February 8, 1811-February 14) 1883), governor of New York, United States senator, was a descendant of James Morgan, a Welshman, who came to Massachusetts about 1636 and about 1650 settled in New London, where he married Margery Hill. Edwin, the son of Jasper and Catherine (Copp) Avery Morgan and a first cousin of Edwin Barber Morgan [q.v.], was born in Washington, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, but in 1822 removed with his parents to Windsor, Connecticut. During his boyhood he worked on his father's farm in summer and attended the village school in winter. In 1826 he entered Bacon Academy, Colchester, Connecticut, but two years later became a clerk in his uncle's grocery store at Hartford, Connecticut. At twenty, he became his uncle's partner. In 1832  he was elected a member of the Hartford city council. Desiring a wider sphere of activity, he removed to New York in 1836, and here, in partnership with Morris Earle and A. D. Pomeroy, established the wholesale grocery firm of Morgan & Earle. Upon its dissolution at the end of 1837, he began business on his own account. His enterprise and sagacity placed him in a few years among New York's leading merchants. On January 1, 1842, he associated with himself his cousin, George D. Morgan, and the latter's partner, Frederick Avery, who retired one year later, his place being taken by one of Morgan's clerks, J. T. Terry. In 1854 Solon Humphreys joined the firm, and banking and brokerage were added to the wholesale grocery business. Largely. through Humphreys, who had spent several years in Missouri, E. D. Morgan & Company in the two years 1855-60 handled over $30,000,000 in securities issued by that state and by the city of St. Louis.

Meanwhile, in 1849 Morgan had been elected a member of the New York City Board of Assistant Aldermen, which acknowledged his ability by electing him its president. His valiant service during a cholera epidemic which swept over the city that year strengthened him in the public eye, and upon the expiration of his term as assistant alderman he was sent to the state Senate. Two years later he was reelected after a severe contest with the Democratic Locofoco candidate. During both his terms he was president pro tempore of the Senate and chairman of, its finance committee. He introduced and carried through the legislature the bill establishing Central Park in New York City. When in 1855 he declined to run for a third term he was appointed one of the state commissioners of emigration, a much coveted position which he held until 1858. Although up to 1855 he had been an assiduous Whig, and was an earnest opponent of slavery, he had not identified himself with the abolitionists because he did not believe in the wisdom of their methods. He was vice-president of the conference which made plans for the first Republican National Convention and was chairman of the Republican National Committee which conducted the Fremont campaign. This chairmanship he continued to hold until 1864.

In 1858 he was chosen by Thurlow Weed as Republican candidate for governor of New York. The odds were against him, but his fine personal character, his spotless record, and his reputation as a successful business man, coupled with the energy with which he conducted his campaign, carried him into office in a four-cornered contest by a plurality of over 17,000 votes. Far from being a mere satellite of Weed, he displayed independence and statesmanlike qualities, both in his messages to the legislature and in his use of the veto power. In 1860 he was reelected by the largest majority which up to that time had ever been given to a gubernatorial candidate in the state. He succeeded during his first administration in improving the state's credit, strengthening its canal system, and making prisons, insurance companies, and charitable organizations more effective. His second administration was devoted to the success of the Union cause in the Civil War. Commissioned major-general of volunteers by Lincoln and placed in command of the military department of New York, he enrolled and equipped 223,000 soldiers. In 1862 he declined renomination for the governorship and upon the expiration of his term was commissioned under a legislative act to put New York harbor in a state of defense. He expended only $6,000 of the $1,000,000 appropriated for this purpose, returning the rest to the state treasury. In 1863 he was chosen United States senator to succeed Preston King. His career in the Senate was not characterized by oratorical display but by hard work both in the committee room and on the floor. In 1865 he declined appointment as secretary of the treasury. He voted with the minority on President Johnson's veto of the Freedman's Bureau Bill and for Johnson's conviction. In 1869 he was defeated for reelection after a bitter contest with Ex-Governor R. E. Fenton [q.v.]. From 1872 to 1876 he was again induced to head the Republican Committee, and in the latter year his name was mentioned in connection with the presidency. He stood for sound currency and civil service reform. In 1876 he was again nominated for governor, but the machine element of his party headed by Senator Conkling was dissatisfied with him, and he was defeated by Lucius Robinson. When Chester A. Arthur [q.v.], his old and ardent friend, succeeded to the presidency, he nominated Morgan for secretary of the treasury, but although the appointment was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Morgan for a second time declined. During his last years he retired from all active participation in politics.

Morgan's fortune at the time of his death was estimated to be between eight and ten million dollars. His gifts during his lifetime totaled over a million dollars. Williams College, Union Theological Seminary, and the Women's, Presbyterian, and Eye and Ear hospitals in New York City especially benefited from his generosity. He was a patron of art well known both in America and on the continent of Europe, and a director of many business concerns. He was tall, well-proportioned, dignified, rather aristocratic in bearing. In 1833 he married his first cousin, Eliza Matilda Waterman, daughter of Captain Henry and Lydia (Morgan) Waterman, of Hartford, Connecticut. Of their five children only one reached maturity, and he died in 1881, before his parents. The elder Morgan died at his home in New York City and was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, Connecticut.

[Journals of the Senate and the Assembly of . . . New York, 1883; N. H. Morgan, Morgan Genealogy (1869); J. A. Morgan, A History of the Family of Morgan (1902); George Wilson, Portrait Gallery of the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York (1890); C. Z. Lincoln, State of New York, Messages from the Governors (1909), volume V; Thurlow Weed Barnes, Memoir of Thurlow Weed (1884); D. S. Alexander, A Pol. History of the State of New York, volumes II, III (1906-09); S. D. Brummer, Political History of New York State during ... the Civil War (1911); Frederick Phisterer, New York in the War of the Rebellion (1912), volumes I, V; J. G. Wilson, The Memorial History of New York (1893), volumes III, IV; New York Daily Tribune, February 14, 1883; New York Times, February 15, 1883.]

H.J.C.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 398:

MORGAN, Edwin Dennison, governor of New York, born in Washington, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, 8 February, 1811; died in New York city, 14 February, 1883. At the age of seventeen he removed to Hartford, Connecticut, where he entered the store of his uncle, Nathan Morgan, and became a partner in 1831. He was a member of the city council there in 1832. Removing to New York in 1836, he established himself in business and became a successful merchant.  During the cholera epidemic he remained in the city to assist the poor. From 1850 till 1863 he was a member of the state senate, serving at one time as president pro tempore. He was vice-president of the National Republican convention that met in Pittsburg, 22 February, 1856, and from 1856 till 1864 was chairman of the Republican national committee. In 1858 he was elected governor of New York, which office he held until 1862. During his term the state debt was reduced, an increase in canal revenue was made, 223,000 troops were sent from New York to the army, and New York harbor was put in a state of defence. On 28 September, 1861, he was made a major-general of volunteers, the state of New York being created a military department under his command, and for his services under this commission he declined compensation. On the expiration of his term he was elected to the U. S. senate as a Republican, serving from 4 M arch, 1863, till 3 March, 1869. He opened the proceedings of the Baltimore convention of 1864, and was a delegate to the Philadelphia loyalists' convention of 1866, but took no part in its action. In 1865 he declined the office of secretary of the U. S. treasury, which was offered him by President Lincoln. In 1872 he was chairman of the National Republican committee, and conducted the successful campaign that resulted in the second election of General Grant. He was a Republican candidate for U. S. senator in 1875, and in 1876 for governor of New York. In 1881 President Arthur offered him the portfolio of secretary of the treasury, which he declined, owing to his advanced age. Governor Morgan gave more than $200,000 to the New York union theological seminary and to Williams college library buildings, and $100,000 for a dormitory. His bequests for charitable and religious purposes amounted to $795,000. In 1867 he received the degree of LL. D. from Williams. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 398.


MORGAN, John, Cincinnati, Ohio, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1834-1835.


MORGAN, Thomas Jefferson (August 17, 1839--July 13, 1902), soldier, Baptist clergyman, educator, and denominational leader. His grandfather had been a slaveholder, but his father was an anti-slavery advocate and a leader in religious, political, and educational matters.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 187-188:

MORGAN, THOMAS JEFFERSON (August 17, 1839--July 13, 1902), soldier, Baptist clergyman, educator, and denominational leader, was sixth in descent from Nathan Morgan, the first of his line to emigrate to the New World. The son of Reverend Lewis Morgan and his third wife, Mary C. Causey (or Cansey), he was born in Franklin, Indiana. His grandfather had been a slaveholder, but his father was an anti-slavery advocate and a leader in religious, political, and educational matters. Thomas was fitted for college in the preparatory school of Franklin College and received the degree of A.B. from that institution in 1861, though he left in his senior year to enlist in the Union army. After three months' service, he took charge of public education at Atlanta, Illinois, but on August I, 1862, was appointed first lieutenant in the 70th Indiana Volunteer Infantry. His period of military service continued for over three years. Prominent in the enlistment of negro troops and eloquent in their defense, he became lieutenant-colonel of the 14th United States Colored Infantry on November I, 1863, and colonel on January 1, 1864. He commanded a division at the battle of Nashville and was brevetted brigadier-general, March 13, 1865. Throughout his life he maintained that war is sometimes justifiable, because the Old Testament teaches that it has been a means of accomplishing holy and gracious purposes of God toward mankind; because admittedly good consequences have issued from war; because historians reckon eras from great battles, such as Tours and Waterloo; because it is necessary to repel invasion, protect the innocent, punish national wrong-doing; and because it is right to engage in a struggle for national independence. He defended nationalism even while pleading for internationalism and dedicating his life to the defense of freedom of conscience.

After leaving the army he entered Rochester Theological Seminary, graduating in 1868. He was ordained a Baptist minister, at Rochester, New York, in 1869, but held only one brief pastorate at Brownville, Nebr., 1871-72. From 1872 to 1874 he was president of the Nebraska Normal School at Peru; from 1874 to 1881, he taught homiletics and ecclesiastical history in the Baptist Union Theological Seminary, Chicago, spending several months in Germany in 1879; from 1881 to 1883 he served as principal of the New York State Normal School at Potsdam, and from 1884 to 1889, as principal of the State Normal School at Providence, Rhode Island. In the latter year, he was appointed commissioner of Indian Affairs by President Harrison. For four years he served with zeal, energy, and good judgment, insisting, in spite of much political and ecclesiastical opposition, that the principle of separation of church and state must be recognized in: the control of Indian schools, and that they must be placed upon the same basis as public schools.

In 1893 he renewed his denominational activity, accepting the position of corresponding secretary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, in which position he served until his death almost a decade later. The clarity of his thought and his unswerving loyalty to his convictions, combined with rare ability wisely to choose and judge his coworkers, made him invaluable as an associate of Dr. Henry L. Morehouse [q.v.], field secretary of the society. Under his skilful promotion, schools for thousands of negro men and women were established and equipped. He was editor of the Baptist Home Mission Monthly, 1893-1902, and author of Reminiscences of Service with Colored Troops in the Army of the Cumberland, 1863-65 (1885); Educational Mosaics (1887); Students' Hymnal (1888); Studies in Pedagogy (1889); Patriotic Citizen ship (1895); The Praise Hymnary (1898); The Negro in America and the Ideal American Republic (1898). In 1870 he married Caroline Starr. Their only -son died before his father.

[Who' s Who in America, 1901-02; F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903); Comfort Starr, A History of the Starr Family (1879); J. A. Morgan, A History of the Family of Morgan (1902?); Examiner, July 24, 1902; Baptist Commonwealth, July 24, 1902; New York Times, July 14, 1902.]

C.H.M.


MORRIL, David Lawrence, 1772-1849, theologian, physician, statesman.  U.S. Congressman and U.S. Senator from New Hampshire.  U.S. Senator from December 1817-March 1823.   Opposed extending slavery into the new territories stated in debate in Congress in 1819: “The states now existing which have thought proper to admit slavery, may retain their slaves as long as they please; but, after the commencement of 1808, Congress may by law prohibit the importation of any more, and restrain those who are then in servitude to the territory or States where they may be found.” 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 408; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 195-196; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 105; 16 Congress, 1 Session, 1819-1820, p. 139; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 880).  

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 195-196:

MORRIL, DAVID LAWRENCE (June 10, 1772-January 28, 1849), clergyman, physician, United States senator, and governor of New Hampshire, was born at Epping, New Hampshire, where his father, Samuel Morril, a Harvard graduate and a Congregational minister, had settled and married Anna, daughter of David Lawrence. He studied with his paternal grandfather, Isaac Morril, a Congregational minister at Wilmington, Massachusetts, and went to Exeter Academy. He then studied medicine and began to practise at Epsom, New Hampshire, when only twenty-one. Seven years later, as the result of a religious experience, he commenced to study for the ministry under the Reverend Jesse Remington, of Candia, and in 1802 he became pastor of a church at Goffstown, formed by a union of Presbyterians and Congregationalists. Owing partly to ill-health and partly to difficulties in the church, Morril ended his active ministry in November 1809, and his relations with the parish were formally severed in July 1811. During his years as a minister. he had not entirely given up medicine. He had also served as town moderator (1808-14), justice of the peace (1808, and frequently thereafter), and as representative in the state legislature (1808-17). After resigning his pastorate he continued the practice of medicine but became more and more active in politics. In 1816 he was chosen speaker of the state House of Representatives and in the same year was elected for a six-year term in the United States Senate. Here he proved himself a ready speaker, advocating measures for preventing the illegal African slave-trade, opposing the requirement of state enforcement of the federal fugitive-slave laws (though declaring he had "no disposition to deprive slave-holders of that species of property"), and vigorously disapproving the Missouri Compromise. He spoke eloquently, if somewhat sentimentally, in favor of pensions for Revolutionary officers, opposed reimbursing Matthew Lyon for the fine exacted under the Sedition Act, and moved to dismiss from the army and navy, officers who had engaged in dueling.

During his term at Washington Morril and William Hale were both nominated (1820) for governor of New Hampshire against Samuel Bell, but Governor Bell swept the state. When his term as senator expired, however, Morril was immediately elected to the Senate of New Hampshire and was chosen president of that body in June 1823. The next year he was nominated again for governor by the "Adams men," or "old guard" of the Democratic-Republicans, in opposition to the incumbent, Levi Woodbury, who had been elected the preceding year by the "insurgents." Neither candidate received a majority of votes cast, but Morril, having a plurality of more than 3,000, was chosen by the legislature. His reelection the following year was practically unanimous, 30,167 votes being cast for him out of a total of 30,770. In 1825 he had the honor of receiving Lafayette when the latter visited Concord. The following year he was elected governor for a third time, at the expiration of which tenure he retired to private life. He changed his residence in 1831 from Goffstown to Concord, where during his remaining years he was chiefly engaged in religious activities. He served as a vice-president of the American Bible Society, the Sunday-School Union, and the Horne Missionary Society, and for two years was editor of a religious paper, the New Hampshire Observer. Still active within ten days of his death, he died at Concord in his seventy-seventh year.

Morril was an unusual combination of the student and active man of affairs. Medicine, theology, and politics all interested him, and he continued his studies and activities in all three till almost the end of his life. He was strongly Calvinistic in religion, and a stanch, but not violent, anti-Federalist in politics. His intelligence, ability as a speaker, and knowledge of public affairs drew him naturally into political life and made him a popular candidate for office. He seems to have spent his last years in comparative leisure and retirement. He married first, September 25, 1794, Jane Wallace of Epsom, who died December 14, 1823, without children. On August 3, 1824, he married Lydia Poore, of Goffstown, by whom he had four sons, three of whom survived him.

[See Nathaniel Bouton, History of Concord (1856); E. S. Stackpole, History of New Hampshire (1916), volume III; G. P. Hadley, History of the Town of Goffstown, I733-I920 (2 volumes, 1922-24); and A. M. Smith, Morrill Kindred in America (2 volumes, 1914-31). Hadley reproduces a portrait of Morril which is in the State House at Concord. The New-England Historical and Genealogy Registry, April 1849, gives a sketch of his life based on the best contemporary newspaper account, in the Concord Democrat and Freeman, February 1, 1849. There is a brief account of him in the Biographical Directory American Congress (1928) and in N. F. Carter, The Native Ministry of New Hampshire (1906).]

E.V.M.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408:

MORRIL, David Lawrence, senator, born in Epping, Rockingham county, New Hampshire, 10 June, 1772; died in Concord, New Hampshire, 28 January, 1849. After receiving an academical and medical education, he began to practise at Epsom, Merrimack county, New Hampshire, in 1793, but in 1800 turned his attention to the study of theology, was licensed to preach, and served as pastor of the Congregational church at Goffston, New Hampshire, from 1802 till 1811. From 1807 till 1830 he again practised medicine, and he sat as a representative in the general court from 1808 till 1817, being elected speaker in 1816. He was chosen U. S. senator as an Adams Democrat, and served from 1 December, 1817, till 3 March, 1823, when he was sent to the state senate and elected its president. In 1824 he was a candidate for governor, and, there being no choice by the people, he was elected by the convention. In the two following years he was chosen by the people. In 1831 he removed to Concord, where he edited the “New Hampshire Observer,” a religious journal. He received the honorary degree of M. D. from Dartmouth college in 1821, and that of LL. D. from the University of Vermont in 1825. He was connected with many charitable, medical, and agricultural associations, and published several sermons, orations, and controversial pamphlets. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408.


MORRILL, Anson Peaslee, 1803-1887, anti-slavery governor of Maine, U.S. Congressman, 1861-1863.  Brother of abolitionist Lot Myrick Morrill.  Supported by Whigs and the Free-Soil-Party. Early founding member of the Republican Party in 1856. 

(American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 884; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 408; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 196-197; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe).

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 196-197:

MORRILL, ANSON PEASLEE (June 10, 1803-July 4, 1887), governor of Maine and congressman, the son of Peaslee and Nancy (Macomber) Morrill and the descendant of John Morrill who was living at Kittery, Maine, as early as 1668, was born in Belgrade, Kennebec County, Maine. He had the advantages only of a common- school education, working during his spare time in a mill where corn was ground, wood sawed, and wool carded. At one time he taught school at Miramichi, New Brunswick, Canada. In early manhood he became the postmaster at Dearborn in Kennebec County, keeping at the same time a general store. Still a store-keeper, he was later postmaster at North Belgrade, and he lived for some time at Madison. In 1827 he was married to Rowena M. Richardson, who died in 1882. His great business opportunity came in 1844 when he was asked to take charge of a woolen-mill in Readfield, then on the verge of bankruptcy. Here his exceptional talents became evident. Putting the mill on a paying basis, he eventually became the owner of the factory and laid the foundations of a comfortable fortune. His political career began in 1834, when he served a term in the state legislature. He was sheriff of Somerset County in 1839 but lost this office in 1840, when Maine elected the Whig state and national ticket. In 1841 he refused reappointment from the newly elected Democratic governor. From 1850 to 1853 he was land agent of the state.

When the two questions, temperance and slavery, broke the unity of the Democrats in Maine, with considerable courage he led a bolting faction of the Democrats in 1853 on the temperance issue. His supporters were known as "Morrill Democrats," and as an independent candidate for the governorship he ran third. The following year, 1854, the Whigs and the Free soilers joined the temperance forces to give him a vote of about 44,000 against 28,000 for his opponent, Albion K. Parris. Since, however, there were four candidates he did not have a majority of the votes cast and the legislature chose him when it met the next January. The fusion party that elected him governor to ok the name Republican for the fir st time in Maine on August 7, 1854 (see W. F. P. Fogg, The Republican Party . .. with the History of its Formation in Maine, 1884). In the election of 1855 he again had a popular plurality, but the same Senate that elected his brother, Lot Myrick Morrill [q.v.], its president, appointed his Democratic opponent, Samuel Wells, governor. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1856. Elected to Congress in 1860, he served from 1861 to 1863 but declined reelection, preferring to make way for the election of James G. Blaine. With the exception of one more term in the state legislature, 1881-82, this ended his political service. His independence and impetuosity frequently offended many friends. His own acts and words often impeded his political progress. Others, however, were attracted by his ruggedness, honesty, and integrity. His superior business ability was re cognized when the railroad interests that had bought largely of the. stock of the Maine Central elect ed him president of the road. During the year he occupied this position he took a special interest in improving the efficiency of operation. From Readfield he moved to Augusta in 1879, where he died after a short illness, leaving two children.

[L. C. Hatch, Maine (1919) volume II; Reminiscences of Neal Dow (1898), pp. 482-95, 503-21; A. M. Smith, Morrill Kindred in America, volume II (1931); Harper's Weekly, July 16, 1887; Daily Eastern Argus (Portland), July 6, 1887.]

R. E. M.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 408:

MORRILL, Anson Peaslee, statesman, born in Belgrade, Kennebec county, Maine, 10 June, 1803; died in Augusta, Maine, 4 July, 1887. He received a common-school education and devoted himself to mercantile pursuits in his native town. He soon bought an interest in a woollen-mill, and subsequently became connected with several extensive manufactories. In 1833 he was elected as a Democrat to the legislature, in 1839 he was made sheriff of Somerset county, and in 1850 he became land-agent. In 1853, when the Democratic convention decided to oppose prohibition, he cut loose from that party, and was a candidate for governor on the Free-soil and Prohibition tickets, but was defeated. The following year he was again a candidate, and, although there was no choice by the people, he was elected by the legislature, being the first Republican governor of Maine. He was an unsuccessful candidate for re-election, being defeated in the legislature through a coalition between the Whigs and Democrats. The party that Governor Morrill had formed served as the nucleus for the movement in 1856 when the National Republican party first took the field, and he was a delegate to the convention that nominated John C. Frémont for president. He was elected to congress in 1860, and served from 4 July, 1861, till 3 March, 1863. Declining a re-election, he became largely interested in railroads in his native state, and remained out of politics until 1881, when he was sent to the legislature. He removed to Augusta in 1876.  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 408.


MORRILL, Edmund Needham (February 12, 1834-March 14, 1909), congressman from Kansas and governor.  On October 5, 1857, he was elected to the free-state territorial legislature.

Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 197-198:

MORRILL, EDMUND NEEDHAM (February 12, 1834-March 14, 1909), congressman from Kansas and governor, the son of Rufus and Mary (Webb) Morrill, was born at Westbrook, Cumberland County, Maine, and received his education at Westbrook Seminary. He removed to Brown County, Kansas, where he arrived on March 12, 1857, and set up a sawmill, which he operated until 1860. On October 5, 1857, he was elected to the free-state territorial legislature. On October 5, 1861, he enlisted in the 7th Kansas Cavalry and through the influence of Vice-President Hamlin of Maine was appointed, in August 1862, to be commissary of subsistence. He was mustered out with the rank of major, by brevet, in October 1865. On November 27, 1862, he had married Elizabeth A. Brettun, the daughter of William H. Brettun of Leavenworth, Kansas, who died in September 1868. On December 25, of the next year, he married Caroline J. Nash of Roxbury, Massachusetts, who bore him three children.

His life after the war was divided between business and politics. Although in political life almost continuously, he was not a professional politician in the usual sense. He was active in promoting the building of two railroads across the county in which he lived. He entered the banking business in 1871 at Hiawatha, later became interested in banks at Leavenworth and Kansas City, a s well as in a loan company at Atchison, and acquired extensive land holdings. Toward the end of his life he was rated as one of the wealthiest men in the state. After his retirement from the governorship he developed one of the largest single apple orchards in the state, an orchard of 880 acres. He was active in promoting the educational and cultural interest of his community, established a public library in 1882, and assisted financially in establishing and maintaining the Hiawatha academy. He was a conservative in his general point of view on life and on public questions his attitude was further conditioned to a marked degree by his service as a Union soldier and by his interests as a banker.

From 1866 to 1872 he held county offices. In the latter year he was elected to the state Senate on the Republican ticket and was reelected in 1876. In that body he became chairman of the committee on ways and means and president pro tempore. From 1883 to 1891 he was a member of the federal Congress, where he received an assignment on the committee on invalid pensions. The eight years spent in the House of Representatives was devoted almost exclusively to pension legislation. He declined to stand for reelection in 1890. In 1894 he was brought forward against the Populists who then dominated Kansas, and was elected governor in spite of the charge that in his speculations in land with clouded titles he had defrauded large numbers of farmers of their homesteads and thereby built up a large part of his fortune (Ottawa Journal, September 20, 27, October 4, 1894, for excellent summary of charges; Atchison Daily Champion, October 30, 1894, for defense). His administration was embarrassed in carrying out a program by a Populist Senate. Among the leading problems of his term as governor were those arising from drought and destitution in the western part of the state, from the mortgage laws and rates of interest, and from the prohibition law which he upheld in a conservative although sincere fashion. His conception of his office was that the governor should execute laws and not attempt to make them (Morrill to C. J. Hammonds, January 30, 1895, correspondence of the governors of Kansas, Letter- press Books, volume III, p. 294). His theory of government was expressed in his statement that "when the government has protected the individual in his life and property ... he ought to hustle for himself to get bread" (Morrill to William A. Porter, January 19, 1895, correspondence of the governors of Kansas, Letter-press Books, volume III, p. 23). In 1896 he was renominated and in the bitterly fought campaign the opposing party, a Populist, Democratic, Free Silver combination brought up again the charge of 1894. He was defeated, although he ran ahead of the state ticket and the McKinley electors, and retired to Brown County to devote himself to his varied interests. He died in San Antonio, Texas.

[Private papers in the hands of his family; correspondence as governor of Kansas in State Historical Society Library, Topeka; F. W. Blackmar, Kansas (copyright 1912), volume II; A. T. Andreas, History of the State of Kansas (1883); Kansas State Historical Society Trans., volume X (1908); Kansas State Historical Society Collections, volume XII (1912); Who's Who in America, 1908-09; G. W. Harrington, Annals of Brown County, Kansas (1903); D. W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas, new ed. (1886); World (Hiawatha, Kansas), esp. March 15-20, 1909.]

J.C. M.


MORRILL, Justin Smith, 1810-1898, abolitionist.  Republican Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont.  Served as Congressman December 1855-March 1867.  U.S. Senator 1873-1891.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. In 1854 he was elected as an Anti-Slavery Whig to the House of Representatives, commencing an unbroken service of twelve years in the House and almost thirty-two years in the Senate, to which he was elected in 1866.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 409; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 198-199; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 882; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 198-199:

MORRILL, JUSTIN SMITH (April 14, 1810- December 28, 1898), representative and senator from Vermont, was the eldest of the ten children of Nathaniel and Mary (Hunt) Morrill. Of humble, sturdy, English stock, he was the descendant of Abraham Morrill who landed in Boston in 1632 and settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts. The Morrills settled in Strafford, Vermont, in 1795, where the boy was born and where his grandfather and father combined farming with the blacksmith's trade. He attended the village school and neighboring academies until the age of fifteen, when he became a clerk in the village store. He was in Portland, Maine, from 1828 to 1831 learning merchandising and then returned to Strafford and became a partner of his friend, Jedediah H. Harris, in the village store, which as a center of news and a forum of discussion was an excellent training-school for politicians. As a merchant he prospered, and in 1848 he was able to retire to a quiet life of reading and farming. On September 17, 1851, he was married to Ruth Barrell Swan of Easton, Massachusetts. They had two sons. As an amateur politician he had served on county and state committees, and in 1852 he was chosen to represent the Whigs at their national convention. The dissension of the Whig party at this convention influenced him throughout his life to labor to preserve harmony in the Republican party, in the Vermont organization of which he had played a prominent part in 1855.

In 1854 he was elected as an Anti-Slavery Whig to the House of Representatives, commencing an unbroken service of twelve years in the House and almost thirty-two years in the Senate, to which he was elected in 1866 and was returned at each election with virtual unanimity. This service in the House and Senate constituted the longest period of continuous service in the United States Congress so far recorded. In the House he became an important member of the committee on ways and means, of which he was chairman from 1865 to 1867; and in the Senate he served effectively as a member of the committee on finance, of which he was chairman from 1877 to 1879, 1881 to 1893, and 1895 to 1898. After an experimental period in the House, in which though a stanch abolitionist he sounded a temperate and conciliatory note on the great question of slavery, he found his real work in problems of tariff and finance. As a member of the committee on ways and means he wrote a bill providing for the payment of outstanding treasury notes, authorizing a loan, and revising the tariff. This act, known as the Morrill Tariff Act, was intended to be a revenue as well as a protective measure, but amendments made it more strongly protectionist than he had desired. Although causing bitter resentment in the South, the bill was passed early in 1861. His tariff views were somewhat colored by a traditional distrust of Great Britain, and he never thoroughly mastered the principles of international trade, but as a conscientious and not uncompromising protectionist he remained throughout his career influential in tariff legislation, especially in the bill of 1883. In the field of finance lay his greatest talents. With an attack upon the legal tender bill, which, however, was passed in 1862, he began a long fight against inconvertible money and financial inflation. During the Civil War he prepared a series of internal revenue bills and became the champion of economy in the House. After the war he was a leader in the financial reconstruction and an inflexible advocate of a speedy return to specie payments. He was offered a position in the cabinet of President Hayes as secretary of the treasury but declined. In the Cleveland administration he attacked the free-silver heresy.

Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was his Land-Grant College Act, which led to the development of the important system of state educational institutions aided by the federal government. In 1857 he introduced a bill "donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts" (, 35 Congress  I Session, p. 32). This was vetoed by Buchanan in 1859, but a similar bill was signed by Lincoln in 1862. In 1890 he introduced in the Senate the so-called Second Morrill Act, under which $25,000 is given annually by the federal government to each of the land-grant colleges. As chairman of the Senate committee on building and grounds he rendered valuable service. He was largely responsible for the plan and execution of the terraces, fountains, and gardens of the Capitol and the completion of the Washington Monument. To his original proposal and persevering legislation is also chiefly due the Library of Congress. His artistic and literary interests found further outlet in his numerous contributions to current periodicals, among them being his book, Self-Consciousness of Noted Persons (1882), his Forum series of "Notable Letters from my Political Friends" (October-December 1897), and other articles in the Forum from time to time (August 1896, January, July 1889, October 1898).

As a politician he was noted for sound reasoning, clear apprehension and statement, faithful labor, and temperate, courteous attitude. He was an exceptionally skilful legislator. In appearance he was imposing, being tall and angular and having stern Roman features and side whiskers. As a man he was characterized by urbanity and charm of manner, modesty, culture, and great love of country. He was a genial host at his home on Thomas Circle in Washington, and his birthday parties were among the important social events of the Capitol. In his later days in the Senate his prestige was great, and he was often referred to as "The Nestor of the Senate," "The grand old man of the Republican Party," and "The Gladstone of America." He died in Washington, survived by one of his two sons.

[Papers and letters are in Library of Congress; published material includes W. B. Parker, The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill (1924); G. W. Atherton, The Legislative Career of Justin Smith Morrill (1900 ?); I. M. Tarbell, "The Tariff in Our Times," American Magazine, December 1906, pp. II6-32; Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of Justin Smith Morrill; (1879); Justin Smith Morrill: Centenary Exercises (1910); A. M. Smith, Morrill Kindred in America, volume II (1931); Evening Star (Washington), December 27, 28, 1898. A discussion of the credit due to Jonathan Baldwin Turner [q. v.] for the Land-Grant College Act is in Parker, ante, pp. 278-84; the claim is set forth in some detail in E. J. James, "The Origin of the Land Grant Act of 1862," University of Illinois Studies, volume IV, no. 1 (1910); a brief consideration and decision against the Turner claim in I. L. Kandel, "Federal Aid for Vocational Education," The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Bulletin, no. 10 (1917), p. 79.]

C. M. F.
A.R.B.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 409:

MORRILL, Justin Smith, senator, born in Strafford, Orange county, Vermont, 14 April, 1810. He received a common-school education, and engaged in mercantile pursuits until 1848, when he turned his attention to agriculture. He was elected to congress as a Republican, and five times re-elected, serving from 3 December, 1855, until 3 March, 1867. He was the author of the “Morrill” tariff of 1861, and acted as chairman of the committee of ways and means in 1864-'5. He was elected U.S. senator from Vermont in 1867, and re-elected in 1873, 1879, and 1886. His present term will expire in 1891. He is the author of a Self-Consciousness of Noted Persons” (Boston, 1886). Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 409.


MORRILL, Lot Myrick, 1813-1883, lawyer, temperance advocate, opposed slavery, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, 1876, two-term Republican Governor of Maine, U.S. Senator, 1861-1869.  Joined the Republican Party due to his position against slavery and its expansion into the new territories.  Supported the bill in Congress that emancipated slaves in Washington, DC.  Voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. After the war, he supported higher education for African Americans.  In 1866, he supported voting rights for African Americans in Washington, DC. 

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408-409; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 199-200; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 884; Congressional Globe; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 199-200:

MORRILL, LOT MYRICK (May 3, 1812-January 10, 1883), governor of Maine, United States senator, secretary of the treasury, one of the fourteen children of Peaslee and Nancy (Macomber) Morrill, was born in Belgrade, Maine. After attending the common-school and the local academy he taught in order to obtain money to attend Waterville (now Colby) College, which he entered at the age of eighteen. He remained there but a short time, however. For a year he was principal of a private school in western New York. Returning to Maine, he began the study of law under Judge Fuller of Readfield. Admitted to the bar in 1839, he built up a considerable law practice chiefly among Democratic friends. Being much in demanc1 as a speaker on temperance and political subjects, he won some local fame so that when he moved to the state capital, Augusta, in 1841, he was frequently employed before legislative committees. This was his school of politics. His law partners in Augusta were James W. Bradbury and Richard D. Rice. Becoming chairman of the state Democratic committee in 1849, he held that office until 1856, when he refused to attend the meetings of the state committee, writing, "The candidate [Buchanan] is a good one, but the platform is a flagrant outrage upon the country and an insult to the North" (Talbot, post, p. 232). The breach with his party, thus made complete, began in 1855 when he opposed pledging the Democratic party to further concessions to the slave states. The same step had already been take n by his brother, Anson Peaslee Morrill, and his friend, Hannibal Hamlin [qq.v.]. He was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1854 and of the Senate in 1856. His immediate election to the presidency of the Senate by the Democratic majority, from whom he had already shown divergence of principles, has been explained on the ground that his ability on the floor was more feared than his prestige as president. His Republicanism became definite in 1856 and, although his nomination to the governorship was opposed by some because of his late conversion, he was elected and twice ree1ected governor, serving in 1858, 1859, and 1860. Both in the legislature and as governor he was a strong opponent of the repeal of Maine's prohibition law, against which there ha d been a reaction.

When Hannibal Hamlin resigned from the Senate to accept the vice-presidency under Lincoln, the state legislature, in January 1861, elected Morrill as his successor. Reelected, he served to March 4, 1869, being succeeded by Hannibal Hamlin, who defeated him by one vote J in the Maine Senate. In the so-called peace convention of February 1861 he opposed with conspicuous ability the arguments of Crittenden (L. E. Chittenden, A Report of the Debates and Proceedings ... of the Conference Convention, 1864, pp. 144-50), and he maintained the same position when the Crittenden Resolutions were presented to Congress in March. In March 1862 he spoke in favor of a bill to confiscate the property and to emancipate the slaves of "rebels," seeing clearly that the question was not one of law but one of placing in the hands of the military authorities a weapon to help them win the war (Speech ... Delivered in the Senate ... March 5, 1862, 1862, also in Congressional Globe, 37 Congress, 2 Session, pp. rn74-78). In April 1862 he led the debate which resulted in the act emancipating slaves in the District of Columbia (Ibid., p. 1516). Later, in June 1866, he was a prominent advocate of the act th at conferred suffrage on the colored citizens of the District (Ibid., 39 Congress, I Session, pp. 3432-34). He was a strong adherent of congressional Reconstruction (Reconstruction. Speech in the Senate ... February 5, 1868, 1868; also in Congressional Globe, 40 Congress, 2 Session, app. pp. 110-17), and voted for the impeachment of President Johnson, although his colleague from Maine, William P. Fessenden [q.v.], voted for acquittal. On the death of Fessenden in September 1869 he was appointed to fill out the unexpired term. He was reelected by the state legislature in 1871.

Although he had previously refused to accept appointment as secretary of war, resigning from the Senate on July 7, 1876, he accepted Grant's appointment as secretary of the treasury to succeed Benjamin H. Bristow [q.v. ]. His studies as chairman of the Senate committee on appropriations had fitted him for the duties of this office and he was a worthy successor to Bristow. When he left the treasury on March 8, 1877, President Hayes offered him the ministry to Great Britain. Enfeebled health, following on a severe illness of 1870 and another attack of 1877, influenced him to accept the lucrative post of collector at Portland rather than a more important and responsible position. He held the collectorship at the time of his death in Portland. His wife, Charlotte Holland Vance, whom he had married in 1845, and four daughters survived him.

[G. F. Talbot, "Lot M. Morrill," Maine Historical Society Collections, 2 series, volume V (1894); J. W. North, The History of Augusta (1870); Biographical Encyclopedia of Maine (1885); C. E. Hamlin, The Life and Times of Hannibal Hamlin (1899); A. M. Smith, Morrill Kindred m America, volume II (1931); Advertiser (Portland), January 10, 1883; Daily Eastern Argus, January 11, 1883; date of birth from his daughter, Anne Morrill Hamlin.]

R. E. M.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408-409:

MORRILL, Lot Myrick, secretary of the treasury, born in Belgrade, Kennebec county, Maine, 3 May, 1813; died in Augusta, Maine, 10 January, 1883, entered Waterville college (now Colby university) in 1835, but did not remain through the year. He then studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1839. He removed to Augusta, established himself in practice, and was an active member of the Democratic party in Maine. In 1854 he was elected to the legislature, and on his re-election in 1856 he was chosen president of the senate. Subsequently Mr. Morrill denounced the course of his party on the question of slavery in Kansas, severed his connection with his former associates, was nominated in 1857 by the Republicans for governor, and elected by over 15,000 majority. He was twice re-elected. In 1860 Governor Morrill was chosen to the U. S. senate to fill the vacancy caused by Hannibal Hamlin's election to the vice-presidency. He entered the senate, 17 January, 1861, was placed on important committees, and attended the Peace conference of that year. During the two that followed he took an active part in public affairs, and in 1863 was elected senator for the term that ended in 1869. In the Republican caucus for a successor, Mr. Morrill was defeated by a single vote: but, as William P. Fessenden died in 1869, Morrill was appointed to serve out the remainder of Fessenden's term. In 1871 he was again elected senator, and in the discharge of his duties devoted much attention to financial questions. He opposed the bill for inflating the currency, which was vetoed by President Grant, and was in favor of the resumption act of 1875. He was noted as being a hard worker in committee-rooms, and was especially familiar with naval and Indian affairs. On Sec. William W. Belknap's resignation, President Grant asked Senator Morrill to take a seat in the cabinet, but he declined. In June, 1876, he was made secretary of the treasury. In November, 1876, he made an address to the moneyed men of New York from the steps of the sub-treasury department, and in his annual report in December he urged immediate and yet gradual contraction of the currency, and declared that specie payments could be resumed in 1879. When Mr. Hayes became president in 1877 he offered Mr. Morrill a foreign mission, but it was declined. He was appointed in March collector of customs for Portland district, Maine, which post he held at the time of his death. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 408-409.


MORRILL, Ruth, Portland, Maine, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1844-1853.


MORRIS, Anthony (August 23, 1654-October 23, 1721), Quaker leader of early Pennsylvania.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 200-201:

MORRIS, ANTHONY (August 23, 1654-October 23, 1721), Quaker leader of early Pennsylvania, son of Anthony and Elizabeth (Senior) Morris, was born in Old Gravel Lane, Stepney, London. In his youth he joined the Society of Friends " by convincement," and was married to Mary Jones, March 30, 1676, in the Friends' Savoy Meeting House, in the Strand, London. Early in 1683 he removed to Burlington, West Jersey, and about three years later took up residence in Philadelphia, where he served on numerous committees, and held for some time the position of clerk (presiding officer) of the Monthly Meeting. In 1687 he was clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and as such signed an "Advice" to all Monthly Meetings against the sale of rum to the Indians. In 1688 he sat in the Quarterly Meeting of Philadelphia that considered the famous petition against slavery presented by the German Friends of Germantown, and signed on behalf of the meeting the Minute passing the matter on to the Yearly Meeting. When past middle life he began to speak in meetings for worship. Later he traveled in the ministry to New England and other parts of America, and to Great Britain.

He seems to have prospered financially, judging by the ample properties he owned in Burlington and Philadelphia. His business, in part at least, was brewing, in a day when no odium was attached thereto. He retired from active business, however, when he became engaged in the ministry. His interest in education is indicated by the fact that he signed, in 1697 / 98, the petition to the governor and council for the charter of a public school (the present 'William Penn Charter School) and was appointed by the charter as a member of the first board of overseers. As early as 1691 he was serving as a justice of the peace in Philadelphia, and he served in that capacity for some years. In 1693 he became presiding justice of the Court of Common Plea s for the city and county of Philadelphia and held that position for about five years. In August 1694 he was commissioned associate justice of the provincial supreme court, a position which he held, with his other judicial offices, until 1698. In the charter of 1691 incorporating the city of Philadelphia he was named one of six aldermen; in the city charter of 1701 he was named again to the same office. For one year, 1703-04, he served as mayor of Philadelphia and in that capacity signed an interesting protest to the deputy governor in defense of the rights of the city (Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, II, 1852, p. 161). He was twice elected, in 1695 and 1696, a member of the provincial council and was a member of the Assembly from 1698 to 1704. Morris was married four times: in 1689 to his second wife, Agnes, widow of Cornelius Born, in Philadelphia; in 1693/94 to Mary, widow of Thomas Coddington, at Newport, Rhode Island; and in 1700 to Elizabeth Watson, in Philadelphia. He had fifteen children.

[Sources include: R. C. Moon, The Morris Family of Philadelphia (5 volumes, 1898-1909), esp. volume I; J. W. Jordan, ed., Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania Biography, volume X (1918); G. P. Donehoo, ed., Pennsylvania: A History (1926), volume IX; F. B. Lee, ed., Genealogy and Memorial History of the State of New Jersey (1910), volume III; J. H. Martin, Martin's Bench and Bar of Philadelphia (1883); Bulletin of Friends' Historical Society of Philadelphia, May 1919; the Friend, July 21, 1855; John Smith, "The Lives of the Ministers of the Gospel among the People Called Quakers" (1770), a manuscript in the library of Haverford College; and manuscript records of the Friends preserved at 304 Arch Street, Philadelphia. A few manuscripts written or signed by Anthony Morris are in the library of the Pennsylvania History ]

R.W.K.  


MORRIS, Anthony (February 10: 1766-November 3, 1860), merchant, opposed slavery.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 200-201:

MORRIS, ANTHONY (February 10: 1766-November 3, 1860), merchant, was born at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Samuel and Rebecca (Wistar) Morris and a descendant of Anthony Morris, 1654-1721 [q.v.]. His father was a merchant and captain of the 1st Troop, Philadelphia City Cavalry, during the Revolution. He studied with private tutors, then attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1783. After studying law he was admitted to the Philadelphia bar on July 27, 1787, but he practised little for he was more interested in business and carried on an extensive trade with the East Indies. He was speaker of the Pennsylvania Senate, 1793-94, and from 1800 to 1806 was a director of the Bank of North America. From May 1810, after the American charge at Madrid, George W. Erving, had been forced to leave the country because of the chaotic conditions of factional and civil war, Morris, together with Thomas L. Brent and Thomas Gough, was an unofficial representative of the United States in Spain. He was accused by his companions of seeking to obtain the appointment as minister to Spain and there is no doubt that he was a party to a rather discreditable intrigue, in which certain Spanish officials were involved, to make himself minister by discrediting Erving with the Spanish government. In 1814 when diplomatic relations were resumed Erving was renamed as minister to Spain and Morris returned to America. During his sojourn at Madrid he suggested to the United States that East and West Florida could be purchased for a reasonable sum. Though this suggestion received no attention at the time, it was eventually realized in the Treaty of 1819 by which Spain ceded East and West Florida and the adjacent islands to the United States. He seems, however, to have taken no part in the negotiations. About 1830-31 he founded an agricultural school at Bolton Farms in Bristol Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, but this venture was not successful. He served as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania from 1806 to 1817. His wife was Mary Pemberton whom he had married on May 13, 1790. They had four children. During the latter part of his life he resided with his daughter at "The Highlands," near Georgetown, D. C., where he died.

[J. L. Chamberlain, ed., Universities and Their Sons: University of Pennsylvania, volume II (1902); R. C. Moon, The Morris Family of Philadelphia, volumes I and II (1898); H. B. Fuller, The Purchase of Florida (1906); J. L. M. Curry, "Diplomatic Services of Geo. Wm. Erving," Proceedings Massachusetts Historical Society, 2 series V (1890).]

J.H.F. 


MORRIS, Daniel, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928); Congressional Globe)


MORRIS, Edmund (August 28, 1804-May 4, 1874), editor, writer on agriculture and other subjects, he was an ardent opponent of slavery and was active in support of the Union cause. One of his friends was Horace Greeley, for whom he frequently wrote editorials. During and after the Civil War he was a regular contributor to the New York Tribune, the Newark Daily Advertiser, and the Philadelphia Press.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 204-205:

MORRIS, EDMUND (August 28, 1804-May 4, 1874), editor, writer on agriculture and other subjects, was born in Burlington, New Jersey, a descendant of Anthony Morris, 1654-1721 [q.v.]. His father was Richard Hill Morris and his mother was Mary, daughter of Richard S. Smith of Moorestown, New Jersey. He was married on December 27, 1827, to Mary P. Jenks, daughter of William Jenks of Bridgetown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. They had a son and three daughters. Morris spent his school days in Philadelphia and subsequently learned the printing trade in the office of the Freeman's Journal. In 1824, when he was nineteen years of age, he formed a partnership with S. R. Kramer of Philadelphia and bought the Pennsylvania Correspondent, published at Doylestown, the name of which was changed to Bucks County Patriot and Farmers' Advertiser. The partnership was dissolved in February 1827 and Morris conducted the paper alone until October of the same year, when he sold it. Subsequently he was associated with several Philadelphia publications including the Ariel, a literary weekly. He returned to his native town, and in 1846 became the editor of the Burlington Gazette with which he remained for two years. In 1854 he assumed the editorship of the Daily State Gazette, published at Trenton, New Jersey, resigning his post in 1856 when he returned to Burlington to remain until his death.

Throughout his life Morris was interested in rural pursuits and wrote on agriculture and other general subjects. He took up farm land in the neighborhood of Burlington and wrote several pamphlets embodying his experience. One of these, Ten Acres Enough for Intensive Gardening (1844), had a wide sale and was translated into several languages. This gave him a reputation and brought him into contact with those interested in agriculture and thus led him into the business of selling farms in the vicinity of Burlington. The town of Beverly on the Delaware River below Burlington owes its foundation to his efforts. He also became interested in silk culture and impoverished himself in experimenting with mulberry plants. He was an ardent opponent of slavery and was active with his pen in support of the Union cause. One of his friends was Horace Greeley, for whom he frequently wrote editorials. During and after the Civil War he was a regular contributor to the New York Tribune, the Newark Daily Advertiser, and the Philadelphia Press. He experimented with mechanical inventions, and it is claimed that he was one of the first persons in the United States to print in two colors. His published writings include How to Get a Farm and Where to Find One (1864) and Farming for Boys (1868). He edited Derrick and Drill (1865), a compilation of information regarding the oil fields of Pennsylvania.

[W. E. Schermerhorn, The History of Burlington, New Jersey (1927); W.W. H. Davis, History of Doylestown, Old and New (1903); Mary Morris Ferguson, The Family of Edmund Morris (1899); Report of the State Librarian of Pennsylvania, 1900 (1901); Daily State Gazette (Trenton), May 6, 1874.].

H. S.


MORRIS, Edward Dafydd (October 31, 1825-November 21, 1915), Presbyterian clergyman, educator, he made political speeches in support of the Free-Soil party.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 205-206:

MORRIS, EDWARD DAFYDD (October 31, 1825-November 21, 1915), Presbyterian clergyman, educator, was born at Utica, New York. His father, Dafydd Edward Morris, was a native of Wales who came to the United States in his youth; his mother, Anne (Lewis), was of Welsh descent. The father, a man of strong religious principles, was a shoemaker, later conducting a small grocery business. The son enjoyed speaking and preaching in the Welsh language during his public life. He attended private schools in Utica and prepared for college at Whitestown Seminary, New York. Entering the sophomore class at Yale in 1846, he ranked high in scholarship while earning his living. He made political speeches for the Free-Soil party and his writing attracted attention. He graduated at Yale in 1849, a classmate of Timothy Dwight [q.v.].

Graduating in 1852 at Auburn Theological Seminary, where he studied theology under Laurens P. Hickok [q. v.], Morris was ordained, by the Cayuga Presbytery, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church of Auburn, New York. In 1855 he went to the Second Presbyterian Church of Columbus, Ohio. From this scholarly and productive ministry he was called in 1867 to the professorship of church history in Lane Theological Seminary, Cincinnati, and in 1874 was transferred to the chair of systematic theology, which he held until 1897 when he resign ed and was made professor emeritus. Thereafter, he made his home at Columbus, for a time still lecturing at Lane besides speaking in various places and writing for publication. He was in responsible relation to Lane Seminary for thirty-four year, having become one of its trustees in 1863 and serving on the board until he became one of its faculty. He was a gain elected a trustee in 1870 in order to serve in a n emergency as treasurer and superintendent of the Seminary, a t ask for which his business abilities specially fitted him. During the closing years of his professorship he won the gratitude of the trustees by his strenuous and successful efforts to assist the Seminary through a period of stress and peril.

Morris was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1875. He was a member of the Church's committee on the revision of the creed, to which he gave active service. He was an earnest upholder of the theological standards of his Church, which he interpreted in a liberal spirit that accorded with his training and the temper of his mind. He was a vigorous exponent of the "New School" theology. His students were impress ed with the lucidity, catholic range, and deeply evangelical spirit of his instruction, and appreciated his constant personal interest in them. His courtly bearing, brilliant dark eyes, and ruddy complex ion gave him an appearance of vigor and distinction, enhanced in his later years by abundant white hair and beard. He was twice married: on July 29, 1852, to Frances Elizabeth, daughter of Dan and Fanny (Rowe) Parmelee of F air Have n, Connecticut, who died in 1866; and on March 26, 1867, to Mary Bryan Treat of Tallmadge, Ohio, who di ed in 1893. Four children were born of the fir st marri age; two, of the second. He died in Columbus three weeks after hi  ninetieth birthday, having maintained his menta l activity to the end. His published works include: Outlines of Theology (1880), Ecclesiology (1885), Scripture Readings (l887), Is there Salvation after Death? (1887), Thirty Years in Lane (1897), Theology of the Westminster Symbols (1900), The Presbyterian Church, New School (1905).

[Ohio State Journal (Columbus), May 6, 1 895, and November 22, 1915; Herald-Dispatch (Utica), November 22, 1915; The Continent (New York), August 3, 1911, and December 2, 1915; Herald and Presbyter (Cincinnati), November 24 and December 1, 1915; General Biographical Catalog Auburn Theol. Seminary (1918); Obituary Record Graduates Yale University, 1916; personal characteristics described in letters from Reverend Dr. Arthur Judson Brown, New York, and others.]

E.D.E.


MORRIS, Edward Joy (July 16, 1815- December 31, 1881), legislator, diplomat, and author. He took a leading part in the movement for the organization of the Republican party and was elected to the Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh congresses and served from March 4, 1857, to June 8, 1861, when he resigned.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 206:

MORRIS, EDWARD JOY (July 16, 1815- December 31, 1881), legislator, diplomat, and author, was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He matriculated at the University of Pennsylvania in the class of 1835, left in his freshman year, and was graduated from Harvard College in 1836. He studied law in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the bar in 1842, meanwhile being elected to the state Assembly in which he served during the years 1841-43. He was then elected as a Whig representative to the Twenty-eighth Congress for one term, 1843-45. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection. On January 10, 1850, he was appointed charge d'affaires to the Two Sicilies and was stationed at Naples until August 26, 1853. On his return from Naples he became a member of the board of directors of Girard College, Philadelphia, and was a member of the state House of Representatives in 1856. He took a leading part in the movement for the organization of the Republican party and was elected to the Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh congresses and served from March 4, 1857, to June 8, 1861, when he resigned. On the latter date President Lincoln appointed him minister to Turkey, where he served with zeal and fidelity until October 25, 1870. While at Constantinople he negotiated a commercial treaty which was approved by the United States Senate in 1862.

Morris was a fine linguist, speaking French, Italian, and German fluently, was able to converse in Greek, and knew Turkish and Arabic. In manner he was said to be most agreeable and conciliating. He was a frequent contributor to American magazines and newspapers for many years and was also the author of several works. His Notes of a Tour through Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Arabia Petrea to the Holy Land (2 volumes, 1842) is sometimes referred to as "Morris' Travels." He published in 1854 The Turkish Empire: Its Historical, Statistical and Religious Condition, translated from the German of Alfred de Besse, giving an idea of the "past and present condition of the Ottoman people and empire." In it Morris incorporated excerpts from French writers and a "considerable amount of original matter suggested by his own travels." In 1854 he also published from the original of Theodor Mugge, Afraja, a Norwegian and Lapland Tale, or Life and Love in Norway, which Bayard Taylor called "one of the most remarkable romances of the generation." Another translation was his Corsica, Picturesque, Historical and Social (1855), from the German of Ferdinand Gregorovius, which contained a sketch of the early life of Napoleon.

Morris left Turkey in 1870 and returned to the United States. He had married, July 15, 1847, Elizabeth Gatliff Ella, daughter of John Ella, of Philadelphia. His wife having died sometime prior to 1870, he married Susan Leighton, in Philadelphia, in October 1876. By his first marriage he had two daughters, one of whom survived him. He died in Philadelphia and was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery.

[Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); S. A. Allibone, A Critical Directory of English Literature and British and American Authors, volume II (1870); Public Ledger (Philadelphia), January 2, 1882; Probate Court records, Philadelphia; records of the U. S. Department of State. ]

A. E. I. K.


MORRIS, Gouverneur, 1752-1816, Pennsylvania, statesman, diplomat, founding father, opponent of slavery.  Delegate to the Continental Congress.  Framer and author of parts of the U.S. Constitution, representing Pennsylvania in 1787.  He was called the “penman of the Constitution.”  He called slavery a “nefarious institution… the curse of Heaven on the state where it prevailed…a defiance of the most sacred laws of humanity.” Working with John Jay, Morris tried to abolish slavery in the State of New York. 

(Bruns, Roger, ed. Am I Not a Man and a Brother: The Antislavery Crusade of Revolutionary America, 1688-1788. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1977, pp. 520-521; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 28, 38, 40-41; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, pp. 139-140; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 209-212; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 896; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 415-416) 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, p. 209-212:

MORRIS, GOUVERNEUR (January 31, 1752- November6, 1816), statesman, diplomat, was born in the manor house at Morrisania, New York, the son of Lewis Morris, second lord of the manor, by his second wife, Sarah Gouverneur. From his grandfather, Lewis Morris [q.v.], the first lord of the manor, and from his father, both of whom had served on the bench and in the assembly of New York, defending the rights of the colonists against the royal governors, he inherited traditions of public service and political autonomy. His mother was a descendant of a Huguenot family driven from France by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685; and it was doubtless the French strain in Morris' blood that lent to his conversation and his writings the charming combination of graceful manner, pervasive humor, and cynical philosophical detachment which contrasts so noticeably with the rather ponderous and prosaic rectitude of most of his revolutionary associates.

While he was at school in the Huguenot settlement of New Rochelle where he had frequent opportunity to hear his mother's language spoken, the French power was driven from America and the quarrel between the mother country and the English colonies drew rapidly to its crisis. In the year of the Stamp Act Morris entered King's College, New York, from which he graduated in 1768 at the age of sixteen, just as the British government was dispatching regiments of redcoats to Boston to enforce the provisions of the Townshend legislation. But if the atmosphere of that "provincial Oxford" under its Loyalist president affected the young man with either devotion or repugnance to King George and his friends in Parliament, there is nothing in Morris' record to show it. His bachelor's and master 's essays were pretty conceits of rhetoric, the one on "Wit and Beauty" and the other on "Love." After a period of study in the office of William Smith, the historian and late r the chief justice of the province, Morris was admitted to the bar at the age of nineteen and soon built up a practice which, had it not been constantly interrupted by his political and diplomatic activities, would have put him in the foremost rank of the lawyers of his day. But family influence, a brilliant intellect, unfailing self-assurance, and a remarkable social aptitude combined to make a political career inevitable for Gouverneur Morris. Before he had reached his majority he arrested the attention of the politicians by a vigorous attack upon a bill proposed by the provincial assembly providing for the emission of paper money to liquidate the debt incurred by the French and Indian War.

Until the clash of arms at Lexington made the breach with Great Britain inevitable, Morris was a conservative. As a member of the landed aristocracy he dreaded the social upheaval which he believe d would follow in the train of a "democratic" revolution. "I see, and I see it with fear and trembling," he wrote in 1774, "that if the disputes with Britain continue, we shall be under the worst of all possible dominions ... the domination of a riotous mob .. . . It is the interest of all men, therefore,' to seek for reunion with the parent state" (Sparks, Life, I, 25). Yet when the breach came, Morris adhered unreservedly to the American cause, at no small cost to his family and social connections. Though his half-brothers Lewis and Richard [qq.v.], were active patriots, his half-brother Staats Long Morris became a major-general in the British army and married the Duchess of Gordon; and for writing even a filial letter to his Loyalist mother, Gouverneur Morris fell for a time under suspicion.

The last colonial legislature in New York under the royal governor adjourned in April 1775, and on May 22 a provincial congress of some eighty delegates met at New York City to assume the responsibility of governing the colony. Morris took his seat in this revolutionary body as a representative from Westchester County, and from the first took a leading part, holding the balance between the radical agitators who wished to inaugurate a reign of t error against the Loyalists and the strong Loyalist element who hope d that the British warships in the harbor would make short work of the revolutionary congress. Realizing that the colonists must present a united front if they were to win their rights from Great Britain either by remonstrance or by force, Morris was a strong defender of the dignity and power of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia. To that body, he insisted, should be entrusted the whole re sponsibility of the negotiations for reconciliation with England, as well as the control of the issue of paper money by the colonies. He was a nationalist before the birth of the nation.

When Washington arrived in New York with the Continental Army, after the British evacuation of Boston, the courage of the patriots in the congress and the colony was fortified; and when, three months later, Washington read the Declaration of Independence to his soldiers in Bowling Green, New York was ready to accept the responsibility of an independent state. Morris sat in the constitutional convention which met in July 1776, and with John Jay and Robert R. Livingston drafted the frame of government, adopted the following year, under which the state was to live for n early half a century. His plea for religious tole ration was successful; in spite of Jay's proposal to impose a special oath of loyalty on Roman Catholics, but the combined efforts of Morris and Jay failed to move the convention to abolish slavery in the state. Morris also labored hard for the creation of a strong executive, with powers of suspensive veto and of appointment, subject to the ratification of the legislature. He secured the provision for a single governor instead of an executive board, but the fear of executive tyranny was still strong enough to hamper the governor by the cumbrous faction-ridden councils of revision and appointment which vexed the politics of the state for more than four decades. When the work of the convention was done Morris was appointed on committees, fir st to organize the new government, then to act as a council of safety until the new governor, George Clinton [q.v.], and the legislature were elected. As a member of th e Council of Safety Morris visited the northern army which was resisting the advance of Burgoyne toward Albany. He was an ardent supporter of General Schuyler [q.v.], and with Jay went to Philadelphia on a belated mission to prevent Schuyler from being superseded by Horatio Gates.

Morris' versatility of talent and soundness of judgment were never more in evidence than during the two years 1778-79, when, as a young man in his middle twenties, he sat in the Continental Congress. Financial, military, and diplomatic matters engaged his chief attention. He was chairman of several leading committees and his facile pen was requisitioned for the draft of many an important document, such as the report on Lord North's conciliation offer of 1778 (reprinted in Morris' Observations on the American Revolution, 1779), a public paper on the significance of the treaty with France (Address of the Congress to the Inhabitants of the United States, 1778), the draft of instructions to Benjamin Franklin, first minister of the United States to the Court of Louis XVI, and a comprehensive letter of instructions for the envoy to be sent to Europe to negotiate a treaty of peace and commerce with Great Britain. These instructions, approved in August 1779, six weeks before John A dams was appointed to carry them out, formed the basis of important provisions in the final treaty of peace four years later. On an official visit of inspection to the army at Valley Forge, early in 1778, Morris came into close contact with Washington, to whom he remained devoted for life, and of whose military policies he became perhaps the most able and ardent defender in Congress. Because he refused to enlist the support of Congress for Governor Clinton and his New Yorkers in their claims to Vermont, Morris was defeated for reelection to the Continental Congress in the autumn of 1779. He thereupon transferred his citizenship to Pennsylvania and resumed the practice of law and the cultivation of polite society in the gay city of Philadelphia. He could not remain long out of public life, however. A series of brilliant articles on the Continental finances which he contributed under the signature "An American" to the Pennsylvania Packet, February-April 1780, brought him a year later the invitation from Robert Morris [q.v.], newly created superintendent of finance, to serve as his assistant. This position the younger Morris (who was not a relative of the Superintendent) held from 178r to 1785, his most notable service being a plan for a decimal system of coinage (Sparks, Diplomatic Correspondence, XII, Sr) which was later simplified and perfected by Jefferson and Hamilton.

Morris was elected to the Pennsylvania delegation to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and took part in the debates of that body more frequently than any other member on the floor, not even excepting James Madison. He favored a strong, centralized government in the hands of the rich and the well-born. He would have a president elected for life, with power to appoint a Senate of life members. The suffrage for presidential and congressional electors should be limited to freeholders: "Give the votes to the people who have no property," he argued, "and they will sell them to the rich" (Farrand, post, II, 203). The federal government should have "compleat and compulsive operation" (Ibid., I, 34) throughout the country. Considering that "State attachments, and State importance" had been the "bane of this Country," Morris was willing to see "all the Charters & Constitutions of the States . . . thrown into the fire" (Ibid., I, 531, 553). He strenuously opposed the equal representation of the states in the Senate, and the concessions to slavery in the three-fifths rule and the extension of the slave trade for twenty years. Yet when he was defeated in this extreme program he loyally accepted the bundle of compromises which compose the Constitution, and used his incomparable skill in putting the document into its final literary form.

None of the framers of the Constitution had better claims to high office under it than Gouverneur Morris. But his frankly cynical contempt for "democracy" was a poor asset for the solicitation of votes, and the large interests which he had acquired in various commercial ventures some of them in association with Robert Morris -tempted him to forsake public life for business. He had purchased the family mansion at Morrisania from his elder brother and after the Convention he returned to his native state to live, but was hardly settled on the old manor when business took him to France as agent for Robert Morris to press a claim against the Farmers General rising out of a tobacco contract (Sparks, Life, I, 265, 308). Business, diplomatic duties, and recreational travel kept him in Europe for nearly a decade. He arrived in Paris in February 1789, in time to see the curtain rise on the great drama of the French Revolution. His fame as one of the founders of the American Republic had preceded him. Wealth, affability, family connections, a perfect command of the language, and that sprightly intellectual versatility which is so dear to the heart of the cultured French 'people opened all doors to him, even the doors of the Court.

After Jefferson's return to the United States at the close of 1789, Morris was the most influential American in Paris. He was engaged in plans for opening the tobacco trade on better terms for Americans, for supplying American wheat to the French market, getting the American debt to France transferred to private hands (his own and those of his associates), and selling American lands. These enterprises brought him often before French ministers and committees to urge the modification of the French customs system for the benefit of American trade. His wide range of friendships brought him into contact with leaders of all shades of political opinion, and his immunity from diplomatic responsibility during the first three years of the Revolution allowed him to dispense criticism and counsel freely. The voluminous diary which he kept during these years, supplemented by a diligent correspondence with Washington, Jay, Hamilton, Livingston, King, and other friends at home, furnishes a mine of information and shrewd comment on the men and measures of the Revolution. "You are constantly making remarkable prophecies which turn out to be true," said the French minister to Great Britain to him in July 1790 (Diary and Letters, I, 336). The historian Taine, who drew heavily on Morris in his volumes on the French Revolution, ranked him with Arthur Young, Mallet du Pan, and Mounier in value as a source (Derniers Essais de Critique et d' Histoire, 1894; 6th ed., 1923, p. 307). Morris believed in a constitutional monarchy for France; but he had little confidence in the capacity of a people without political training to make a workable constitution, and still less in the capacity 0£ Louis XVI and his courtiers to provide the authority, order, and justice necessary for the maintenance of the monarchy. Nevertheless, if the monarchy were to be saved in France, Louis XVI must be saved: and Morris even went so far as to draft and urge the carrying out of a plan for the rescue of the king from his virtual imprisonment in the Tuileries.

Early in 1792 President Washington named Morris as minister to France. The nomination was bitterly fought in the Senate, partly because of Morris' aristocratic views and his unconciliatory manners, partly because of the disappointing results of his special mission to London in 1790--91, when he attempted to settle the controversies over debts, trading-posts, impressments, and commercial privileges left over from the peace treaty of 1783 (see S. F. Bemis, Jay's Treaty, 1923). Had the senators known that at the very moment of their deliberations Morris was deeply engaged in the plot to get the king out of Paris, they would certainly not have ratified his nomination-even by the narrow margin of 16 to 11 votes. Still, no one could have represented the United States at Paris better than Morris did in the stormy years 1792-94. Morris was the only foreign minister who refused to leave Paris when the reign of terror converted the city into a shambles. He stayed in the face of repeated insults and perils to vindicate with dignity and courage the full rights of his countrymen, and to offer the asylum of his house to many a refugee in danger of the guillotine. He was recalled at the  request of the French government in the late summer of 1794, as a quid pro quo for the dismissal of "Citizen" Genet [q.v.] by President Washington. Morris did not return to America for another four years, however; he spent the intervening time traveling in various countries, from Scotland to Austria, attending to his manifold business interests, studying the confused European political scene, and writing letters to the British Foreign Office reporting his observations (S. F. Bemis, The American Secretaries of State, volume II, 1927, p. 21; Sparks, Life; I, 424, III, 83-87, 89, 93).

Though he was but forty-two years old when he quitted his ministerial post at Paris, Morris was practically done with politics. To be sure, he had what he called in his diary "the misfortune" to be elected in April 1800 to fill an unexpired term in the United States Senate; but soon after he took his seat as a pronounced Federalist the Democratic-Republicans, under the leadership of Aaron Burr, got control of the New York legislature, and Morris was defeated for reelection in the autumn of 1802, despite the fact that he had supported Jefferson's Louisiana policy. On the expiration of his term the following March, he retired to the new mansion which he had built at Morrisania and spent the remaining thirteen years of his life in cultivating his estate and his friends. On Christmas day, 1809, he married Anne Carey Randolph of Virginia, sister of Thomas Mann Randolph [q.v.]. One son was born of this union.

Morris was active in forwarding the plans for the Erie Canal, and for many years was chairman of the canal commission. His disgust with the rule of the Republicans at Washington drove him to unfortunate extremes in his opposition to the policies of the national government. He denounced the Embargo, condemned the War of 1812, approved the Hartford Convention, and even advocated repudiating the national debt incurred by the war. "In his hatred of the opposite party," says one of his biographers, "he lost all loyalty to the nation" (Roosevelt, post, p. 352). Perhaps this judgment is too harsh, yet it is distressing to see a man whose faith in the American Republic was so robust in the days of the Constitutional Convention and the mission to France writing to Timothy Pickering in 1814 that he would be "glad to meet with some one who could tell ... what has become of the union, in what it consists, and to what useful purpose it endures" (Sparks, III, 312). He rejoiced in the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, but died two years later with his faith in the future of his own country unrevived.

[Jared Sparks, The Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections from his Correspondence (3 volumes, 1832); Anne Carey Morris (his grand-daughter), The Diary and Letters of Governeur Morris (2 volumes, 1888); Theodore Roosevelt, Gouverneur Morris (1888), in the American Statesmen series; H. C. Lodge, "Gouverneur Morris," in the Atlantic Monthly, April 1886, reproduced in his Historical and Pol. Essays (1892); Adhemar Esmein, Gouverneur Morris, un Temoin americain de la Revolution Francaise (Paris, 1906); Daniel Walther, Gouverneur Morris, Temoin de deux Revolutions (1932), with extensive bibliography and list of manuscript sources; Jared Sparks, The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Review (12 volumes, 1829-30')'; American State Papers, Foreign Relations, volume I (1832); Max Farrand, The Records of the Federal Convention (3 volumes,1911);W.W. Spooner, Historical Families of America (copyright 1907); MSS. in Washington Papers, Jefferson Papers, and William Short Papers, Library of Congress]

D.S.M.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 415-416:

MORRIS, Gouverneur, senator, born in Morrisania, New York, 31 January, 1752; died there, 6 November, 1816, was graduated at King's (now Columbia.) college in 1768, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1771. At the age of eighteen he published a series of anonymous newspaper articles against a project, then before the New York assembly, for raising money by issuing bills of credit. He was a delegate to the 1st Provincial congress in 1775, and early attracted attention by a report and speech on the mode of issuing a paper currency by the Continental congress, the chief suggestions of which that body subsequently adopted. He served on the committee that drafted the state constitution in 1776, and the following year took the seat of his half-brother, Lewis, in the Continental congress, which he held until 1780. When the army was in winter-quarters at Valley Forge, Mr. Morris spent some time there as one of a committee that had been appointed to examine, with General Washington, into the condition of the troops. He was also chairman of a committee of five in 1779 whose duty was to consider despatches from the American commissioners in Europe, and whose report formed the basis of the treaty of peace. In the early part of 1780 he published a series of essays signed '”An American,” in the “Pennsylvania Packet,” on the state of the national finances, which were then at their lowest ebb. In May of the same year he was thrown from his carriage in Philadelphia, where he was then residing, and his leg was so severely injured that it had to be amputated. To a friend who called the next day to offer consolation, and who pointed out the good effects that such a trial might produce on his character by preventing him from indulging in the pleasures and dissipations of life, he replied: “My good sir, you argue the matter so handsomely, and point out so clearly the advantages of being without legs, that I am almost tempted to part with the other.” During the remainder of his life he wore a wooden leg, which once proved valuable to him. Being assailed by the Paris mob with cries of “Aristocrat” during the French revolution, while he was driving through the streets of that city, he turned the taunts into cheers by thrusting his wooden leg out of the carriage-window and shouting: “An aristocrat! Yes, one who lost his limb in the cause of American liberty. “In 1781 Robert Morris (q. v.) was placed at the head of the finances of the nation, which hitherto had been managed by a committee of congress. His first act was to appoint Gouverneur Morris his assistant. The latter accepted the office, and fulfilled its duties three years and a half. In 1786, on the death of his mother, he purchased from his brother, Staats Long, the Morrisania estate, which he henceforth made his home. (See illustration.) In 1787 he took his seat as a delegate in the convention that framed the U. S. constitution, the draft of that instrument being placed in his hands for final revision. On 18 December, 1788, Morris sailed for France, and reached Paris on 3 February following, where he was engaged in the transaction of private business for the next two years. In January, 1791, he went to England, having been appointed by President Washington a confidential agent to negotiate with the British government regarding certain unfulfilled articles of the treaty of peace. Conferences were prolonged till September without result. During his stay in London he was made U. S. minister to France. Being succeeded in that office by James Monroe in August, 1794, he made an extensive tour throughout Europe, and while at Vienna used strenuous efforts to obtain the release of Lafayette from confinement in the fortress of Olmütz. He returned to this country toward the close of 1798, and the following spring was elected to the U. S. senate from New York, to fill a vacancy, and served from 3 May, 1800, till 3 March, 1803. During this period he actively opposed the abolition of the judiciary system and the discontinuance of direct taxation, but favored the purchase of Louisiana. He was an active advocate of New York's great canal project, and acted as chairman of the canal commissioners from their first appointment in 1810 until his death. Morris, like many energetic men, was in the habit of expressing his opinions with a freedom that often involved him in difficulties, which his gift of sarcasm tended to increase. His openness and sincerity of character, however, were held by his friends to atone for these defects. Of his abilities as a public speaker James Renwick says in his “Life of Clinton”: “Morris was endowed by nature with all the attributes necessary to the accomplished, orator, a fine and commanding person, a most graceful demeanor, which was rather heightened than impaired by the loss of one of his legs, and a voice of much compass, strength, and richness.” In person he so closely resembled Washington that he stood as a model of his figure to Houdon, the sculptor. When on his death-bed he said: “Sixty-five years ago it pleased the Almighty to call me into existence here, on this spot, in this very room; and how shall I complain that He is pleased to call me hence?” On the day of his death he asked about the weather. Being told it was fine, he replied (his mind, like Daniel Webster's, recurring to Gray's “Elegy”): “A beautiful day; yes, but

‘Who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,      
          This pleasing, anxious being ere resigned, 
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,      
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?’”

He was the author of “Observations on the American Revolution” (1779); “An Address to the Assembly of Pennsylvania on the Abolition of the Bank of North America” (1785); “An Address in Celebration of the Deliverance of Europe from the Yoke of Military Despotism” (1814); an “Inaugural Discourse” before the New York historical, society on his appointment as its president, and funeral orations on Washington, Hamilton, and Governor George Clinton. He also contributed, toward the close of his life, political satires in prose and verse to the newspaper press. See “Memoirs of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections from his Papers and Correspondence,” by Jared Sparks (3 vols., Boston, 1832), and “Gouverneur Morris,” by Theodore Roosevelt, in the “American Statesman Series” (1888). His granddaughter, ANNIE CARY, is now (1888) preparing for publication the “Journals and Letters” of her grandfather. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 415-416.


MORRIS, Thomas, 1776-1844, Virginia, first abolitionist Senator, vice president of the Liberty Party, abolitionist, Ohio lawmaker 1806-1830, Chief Justice of the State of Ohio 1830-1833, U.S. Senator 1833-183?.  Vice President of the American Colonization Society (ACS), 1839-1841.  Executive Committee, American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (A&FASS), 1840-1844. As an abolitionist he actively opposed the extension of slavery. He believed slavery was a moral evil, a national calamity, the greatest national sin. He also fought for right to petition Congress against slavery. 

(Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, pp. 92, 135, 243, 244, 286, 300; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007, pp. 11, 18, 23-24, 27; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, p. 48; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 15, p. 916; Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 418; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 226-227)

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 7, Pt. 1, pp. 226-227:

MORRIS, THOMAS (January 3, 1776-December 7, 1844), senator from Ohio, was the fifth child in the family of twelve children of a Baptist preacher of Welsh descent, Isaac Morris, and of Ruth (Henton) Morris and his wife. He was the descendant of Thomas Morris who emigrated from England to Massachusetts in 1637. Soon after his birth in Berks County, Pennsylvania, his parents settled near Clarksburg, now in West Virginia. With the exception of three months in a common-school he was educated by himself and by his abolitionist mother and father who had a library composed of three Bibles, four New Testaments, a work on elocution, and a few other books. In 1795 he moved to Columbia, now part of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied and worked as clerk in a s tore for the Reverend John Smith, one of the first two United States senators from Ohio. He married Rachael Davis of Welsh descent on November 19, 1797, and moved to Bethel, Ohio, in 1804, where he established his permanent home. He became the father of three daughters and eight sons, one of whom preached at his funeral in the Bethel cemetery and two of whom were elected later to Congress as Democrats. While leading the hard life of a frontier brick-maker he read Blackstone at night by the light of his log-cabin fireplace.

He entered politics after his admission to the bar in 1804 and was elected to the state legislature, where in 1806 he began fifteen terms of service as a state legislator, in the House of Representatives for the fifth, seventh, ninth, tenth, and nineteenth sessions from 1806 to 1821, and in the Senate for the twelfth, thirteenth, twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-fourth to twenty-seventh, thirtieth, and thirty-first sessions from 1813 to 1833. He was chosen judge of the state supreme court in 1809, but later legislation prevented his qualifying. In 1828, with Samuel Medary [q.v.], he established the Ohio Sun to support Andrew Jackson for president. After his defeat for Congress in 1832 the Ohio legislature elected him United States senator to serve a full term, 1833-39. He was an able speaker in spite of his diffidence. He wielded great power over juries with speeches fill ed with Biblical quotations. He was a stanch partisan but not of the pro-slavery wing of the Democracy. True Democracy meant to him the supremacy of the Bible in a society wherein men harmonized their lives with the laws of nature. His political doctrine s were determined by his legalistic and moralistic temperament. He opposed lotteries, chartered monopolies, and imprisonment for debt, and he advocated temperance, the prohibition of alcohol, freedom of conscience in religion, education at state expense, and the recall of judges. As a Unionist he denounced nullification and secession as revolutionary and destructive of American liberty; as an expansionist and abolitionist he boldly opposed the extension of slavery. He believed slavery was a moral evil, a national calamity, the greatest national sin. At a time when it was political suicide in Ohio to be an aggressive radical he incurred the condemnation of the South and lost the support of tactful politicians in his own state by his introduction of petitions in the United States Senate to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Probably his greatest speech was a defense of the abolitionists that he made in the Senate on February 9, 1839, in answer to a severe condemnation of their principles and tactics by Henry Clay (Congressional Globe, 25 Congress, 3 Session, 180-88, app., 167-75). In 1840 he went home ostracized, contemned, and martyred to his cause. The threats of mobs and riotous disturbances did not deter him in his anti-slavery crusade from 1841 to 1844. He was active in the campaign and election of 1844 as the nominee for the vice-presidency of the Liberty party and died of apoplexy soon afterward. His greatest contributions were made as chairman of judiciary committees on which he served for many years and as the abolitionist example and preceptor of the Ohio trio, Salmon P. Chase, Joshua R. Giddings, and Benjamin Wade.

[B. F. Morris, The Life of Thomas Morris (1856); C. B. Galbreath, History of Ohio (1925), volume II; The Biographical Cyclopedia and Portrait Gallery … of the State of Ohio, volume I (1883); Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio; centennial ed., volume I (1889); J. B. Swing, "Thomas Morris," Ohio Arch. and Historical Society Quarterly, January, 1902; Ibid., July 1922.]

W. E. S-h.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, p. 418:

MORRIS, Thomas, senator, born in Augusta county, Virginia, 3 January, 1776; died in Bethel, Ohio, 7 December, 1844. His father was a Baptist clergyman of Welsh descent. The son removed to Columbia, Ohio, in 1795, entered the service, as a farm-hand, of Reverend John Smith, first U. S. senator from Ohio, and in 1800 settled in Clermont county. While engaged in farming be studied law, and in 1804 was admitted to the bar. He was elected to the legislature in 1806, was continuously a member for twenty-four years, became eminent in his profession, was a judge of the supreme court, and was chosen U. S. senator in 1832. He was an ardent opponent of slavery, engaged in important debates with John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay in defence of the right of petition and the duty of the government to favor abolition, and was active in support of the freedom of the press. His anti-slavery sentiments being distasteful to the Democratic party, by whom he was elected, he was not returned for a second term, and in March, 1839, he retired. He was nominated for vice-president by the Liberal party at the Buffalo convention in August, 1844. His death occurred a month after the election. Mr. Morris was an energetic politician, and a fearless champion of liberty and the right of individual opinion. See his “Life and Letters,” edited by his son, Benjamin F. Morris (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1855).  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume IV, pp. 418.



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.