John Tyler Morgan: Difference between revisions

From Bhamwiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
(Created page with "'''John Tyler Morgan''' (born June 20, 1824 in Athens, Tennessee; died June 11, 1907 in Washington D.C.) was a Confederate general, Klan leader and six-term U....")
 
No edit summary
 
(4 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
'''John Tyler Morgan''' (born [[June 20]], [[1824]] in Athens, Tennessee; died [[June 11]], [[1907]] in Washington D.C.) was a Confederate general, Klan leader and six-term U.S. Senator.
[[File:John Tyler Morgan.jpg|right|thumb|250px|John Tyler Morgan]]
'''John Tyler Morgan''' (born [[June 20]], [[1824]] in Athens, Tennessee; died [[June 11]], [[1907]] in Washington D.C.) was a Confederate brigadier general, Klan leader and six-term U.S. Senator.


<!--==Early life and career==
Morgan was the son of George Washington and Mary Frances Irby Morgan. He was educated at home by his mother until moving with the family to [[Calhoun County]] in [[1833]], where he began attending a local frontier school taught by Charles Samuel. He continued his education by reading law under his brother-in-law, Judge [[William Chilton]], in [[Tuskegee]]. Upon his admission to the [[Alabama State Bar]] he opened a practice in [[Talladega]]. After a decade, he relocated to Selma, and also opened an office in the former capital of Cahaba. On [[February 11]], [[1846]] he married Cornelia Willis of Talladega County. They had five children, two of whom died as infants and were buried at their mother's family's [[Thornhill plantation]]. Their son, John H., died in a boating accident in the Potomac in 1885. Their oldest daughter, Mary, served as her father's secretary and died in North Carolina in 1909. The other daughter, Cornelia, lived to 1944.
Morgan was born in [[Athens, Tennessee]] into a family of Welsh origin whose ancestor James B. Morgan [http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp] (1607–1704) settled in the [[Connecticut Colony]]. John T. Morgan was initially educated by his mother. In 1833, he moved with his parents to [[Calhoun County, Alabama]], where he attended frontier schools and then studied law in [[Tuskegee, Alabama|Tuskegee]] with justice [[William Parish Chilton]], his brother-in-law. After admission to the bar he established a practice in [[Talladega, Alabama|Talledega]]. Ten years later, Morgan moved to [[Dallas County, Alabama|Dallas County]] and resumed the practice of law in [[Selma, Alabama|Selma]] and [[Cahaba, Alabama|Cahaba]].


Turning to politics, Morgan became a [[presidential elector]] on the [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]] ticket in 1860, and supported [[John C. Breckinridge]]. He was delegate from Dallas County to the State Convention of 1861, which passed the ordinance of [[secession]].
Morgan was active in local politics and earned a position as an aid to prominent secessionist [[William Yancey]]. He was an elector at the Southern Democrats' convention in Baltimore, Maryland that nominated John C. Breckenridge for president in [[1860 general election|1860]]. He was also a delegate to the [[Alabama Secession Convention]] of January [[1861]].


==Civil War==
During the [[Civil War]] Morgan enlisted as a private in the Cahaba Rifles, and was assigned to the [[5th Alabama Infantry (CSA)|5th Alabama Infantry]]. He participated in the first Battle of Manassas and was later promoted to Major and then to Lieutenant Colonel under Robert E. Rhodes. He resigned from service in [[1862]], but quickly returned to the war, helping organize the 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers and serving as its Colonel at the Battle of Murfreesborough.
With Alabama's vote to leave the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]], at the age of 37 Morgan enlisted as a private in the Cahaba Rifles, which volunteered its services in the [[Confederate Army]] and was assigned to the 5th Alabama Infantry. He first saw action at the [[First Battle of Manassas]] in the summer of 1861. Morgan rose to [[Major (United States)|major]] and then [[Lieutenant colonel (United States)|lieutenant colonel]], serving under [[Colonel (United States)|Col.]] [[Robert E. Rodes]], a future Confederate general. Morgan resigned in 1862 and returned to [[Alabama]], where in August he recruited a new [[regiment]], the 51st Alabama [[Partisan (military)|Partisan Rangers]], becoming its colonel. He led it at the [[Battle of Stones River|Battle of Murfreesborough]], operating in cooperation with the cavalry of [[Nathan Bedford Forrest]].


When Rodes was promoted to [[Major general (United States)|major general]] and given a [[division (military)|division]] in the [[Army of Northern Virginia]], Morgan declined an offer to command Rodes's old [[brigade]] and instead remained in the [[Western Theater of the American Civil War|Western Theater]], leading troops at the [[Battle of Chickamauga]]. On November 16, 1863, he was appointed as a [[Brigadier general (United States)|brigadier general]] of cavalry and participated in the [[Knoxville Campaign]]. His brigade consisted of the 1st, 3rd, 4th (Russell's), 9th, and 51st Alabama Cavalry regiments.
[[File:John Tyler Morgan CSA.jpg|left|thumb|Morgan during the Civil War]]
Morgan declined an offer to follow Rhodes into the Army of Northern Virginia and remained in the west, commanding troops at the Battle of Chickamauga. He was promoted to Brigadier General, commanding the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 9th and 51st Alabama Cavalry regiments during the Knoxville Campaign. His forces were routed by Union cavalry on [[January 27]], [[1864]] and he was reassigned to the Atlanta Campaign, harassing federal troops under William T. Sherman during his "March to the Sea" across Georgia. Morgan spent the last days of the war attempting to organize former slaves into a home guard to oppose the depredations of occupation by Federal troops.


His men were routed and dispersed by Federal cavalry on January 27, 1864. He was reassigned to a new command and fought in the [[Atlanta Campaign]]. Subsequently, his men harassed [[William T. Sherman]]'s troops during the [[Sherman's March to the Sea|March to the Sea]]. Later, he was assigned to administrative duty in [[Demopolis, Alabama]]. When the Confederacy collapsed and the war ended, Morgan was trying to organize Alabama black troops for home defense.
Following the end of the war, Morgan resumed his practice in Selma. After [[James Clanton]] was killed in a duel in Knoxville, Morgan succeeded him as Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. He also returned to politics, aiding the state Democratic party in its successful efforts to retake the state legislature from Reconstruction Republicans in [[1875]].


==Postbellum career==
In [[1876]] Morgan again served as an elector for Democrat Samuel Tilden, who won the popular vote but narrowly lost to Rutherford Hayes in the electoral college. Morgan was also elected by the [[Alabama State Legislature]] to represent the state in the U.S. Senate. The state's senior senator, [[George Spencer]], a native of New York elected by Alabama's Reconstruction legislature, moved to block his confirmation, but was unsuccessful. Morgan was re-elected in [[1882]], [[1888]], [[1894]] and [[1906]], serving from [[March 5]], [[1877]] until his death.
[[File:John Tyler Morgan - Brady-Handy.jpg|thumb|Morgan, circa 1875]]


After the war, Morgan resumed the practicing of law in Selma, Alabama. After the death of [[James H. Clanton]] in 1872, Morgan succeeded him as the [[Grand Dragon]] of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] in Alabama.<ref>[http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-2934 Ku Klux Klan in Alabama during the Reconstruction Era]. The Encyclopedia of Alabama</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/details/authentichistor00davi  Davis, Susan Lawrence, ''Authentic history, Ku Klux Klan, 1865-1877'']. New York, 1924, p. 45.</ref> He was once again presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1876 and was elected as a [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] to the United States Senate in that year, being re-elected in 1882, 1888, 1894, 1900, and 1906, and serving from March 4, 1877, until his death. For much of his tenure, he served as Senator alongside a fellow former Confederate general, [[Edmund W. Pettus]].
At various times during his five terms as Senator, Morgan chaired the Senate Rules Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, the Committee on Inter-oceanic Canals and the Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine. He was known as a highly-intelligent debater, and once joked that with enough preparation he could talk for three days for or against a bill, but, if unprepared, he could continue indefinitely.


Morgan advocated for separating blacks and whites in the U.S. by encouraging the migration of black people out of the U.S. south.  Hochschild wrote, "at various times in his long career Morgan also advocated sending them [negroes] to Hawaii, to Cuba, and to the Philippines - which, perhaps because the islands were so far away, he claimed were a "native home of the negro."<ref>[[Hochschild, Adam]]. ''[[King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa]]''. Mariner Books; 1st Mariner Books Ed edition (October 1999) p79-80</ref>
Morgan was among the Senate's most vocal white supremacists, supporting the proliferation of "Jim Crow" laws to reinstitute political and economic impotence and social segregation for African-Americans. His filibuster of the Federal Elections Bill of 1890, along with his numerous published writings on the subject, was credited with turning the public against the idea of having federal troops stationed at polling places to enforce voting rights. He was involved in efforts to repeal the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and to resettle African-Americans outside the continental United States.


Morgan also staunchly worked for the repeal of the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] to the [[U.S. Constitution]] that was intended to prevent the denial of [[voting rights]] based on race.<ref>[http://www.texasgop.org/site/DocServer/civil_rights_platform_comparison.pdf?docID=103 Democrats and Republicans: In Their Own Words] A 124 Year History of Major Civil Rights Efforts Based on a Side-by-Side Comparison of the Early Platforms of the Two Major Political Parties "According to prominent Democrat leader A. W. Terrell of Texas, the 15th Amendment was what he called "the political blunder of the century." Democratic U. S. Rep. Bourke Cockran of New York and Democratic U.S. Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama agreed with Terrell and were among the Democrats seeking a repeal of the 15th Amendment."</ref>
At the same time, Morgan was a leader for Democrats championing the Monroe Doctrine. He pushed for expanded global trade, hoping to boost Alabama's economy through the export of cotton, coal, iron and timber to new overseas markets. To that end he supported enlargement of the U.S. Navy and merchant marine, and the annexation of far-flung territories as spoils from the [[Spanish-American War]]. He championed a planned canal through Nicaragua to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. That canal ultimately was constructed through the isthmus of Panama. Morgan was also a vocal supporter of José Martí's efforts to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule, with the hope that it would become part of the United States.
He was chairman of [[United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration|Committee on Rules]] (Forty-sixth Congress), the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|Committee on Foreign Relations]] (Fifty-third Congress), the Committee on Interoceanic Canals (Fifty-sixth and Fifty-seventh Congresses), and the Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine (Fifty-ninth Congress).
===Foreign policy===
In 1887-1907 Morgan played a leading role on the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|powerful Foreign Relations Committee.]]  He called for a canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through Nicaragua, enlarging the merchant marine and the Navy, and acquiring Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Cuba. He expected Latin American and Asian markets would become a new export market for Alabama's cotton, coal, iron, and timber. The canal would make trade with the Pacific much more feasible, and an enlarged military would protect that new trade. By 1905, most of his dreams had become reality, with of course the canal going tthrough Panama instead of Nicaragua.<ref>Joseph A. Fry, "John Tyler Morgan's Southern Expansionism," ''Diplomatic History'' (1985) 9#4 pp: 329-346.</ref>


In 1894, Morgan chaired an investigation, known as the [[Morgan Report]] into the Hawaiian Revolution which concluded that the U.S. had remained completely neutral in the matter.  He authored the introduction to the [[Morgan Report]] based on the findings of the investigative committee.
Morgan also lobbied for reparations from the federal government to rebuild the campus of the [[University of Alabama]], which had been burned by U.S. troops in April [[1865]].


He was a strong supporter of the annexation of [[Hawaii]] and visited Hawaii in 1897 in support of annexation.  He believed that the history of the U.S. clearly indicated it was unnecessary to hold a plebiscite in Hawaii as a condition for annexation.  He was appointed by President [[William McKinley]] in July 1898 to the commission created by the [[Newlands Resolution]] to establish government in the [[Territory of Hawaii]]. A strong advocate for a Central American canal, Morgan was also a staunch supporter of the Cuban revolutionaries in the 1890s.
President Harrison appointed him as an arbiter in a controversy over Bering Sea fisheries in [[1892]]. In [[1894]] Morgan chaired the Senate investigation into the Hawaiian Revolution. He visited the Hawaiian islands in [[1897]] to support their annexation into the United States. President McKinley appointed him in July [[1898]] to the commission charged with establishing a territorial government in Hawaii.


==Death and legacy==
In June [[1907]] Morgan died in Washington D.C. three months after being sworn in for his fifth term in the Senate. [[John H. Bankhead]] of [[Jasper]] was appointed to fill his remaining term. In the House of Representatives on [[April 25]], [[1908]] Alabama congressman [[Tom Heflin]] remembered Morgan and his colleague, [[Edmund Pettus]], as men who did more than than any others to "stay the hideous tide of negro domination," by reversing Reconstruction-era political reforms.
Senator Morgan died in [[Washington, D.C.]] while still in office. He was buried in Live Oak Cemetery in Selma, Alabama. The remainder of his term was served by [[John H. Bankhead]].


An article by history professor Thomas Adams Upchurch in the April 2004 ''Alabama Review'' says:
Morgan's body was transported to Selma for burial in that city's Live Oak Cemetery. Afterward the remains of his widow and son, who had predeceased him while they were living in Washington and had been buried in Rock Creek Cemetery there, were exhumed and re-interred alongside him in Selma. They were joined by the younger daughter Cornelia after her death in 1944.


:His congressional speeches and published writings demonstrate the central role that Morgan played in the drama of racial politics on Capitol Hill and in the national press from 1889 to 1891. More importantly, they reveal his leadership in forging the ideology of [[white supremacy]] that dominated American race relations from the 1890s to the 1960s. Indeed, Morgan emerged as the most prominent and notorious racist ideologue of his day, a man who, as much as any other individual, set the tone for the coming [[Jim Crow laws|Jim Crow]] era."<ref>Upchurch, Thomas Adams, [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3880/is_200404/ai_n9363921 Senator John Tyler Morgan and the Genesis of Jim Crow Ideology, 1889-1891], Alabama Review, Apr 2004</ref>
Shortly after his death, the newly-completed [[Morgan Hall]] at the University of Alabama was named in Senator Morgan's honor. He was inducted into the [[Alabama Hall of Fame]] in [[1953]]. Selma's John T. Morgan Academy, founded in [[1965]] as a "segregation academy," was named for the former Senator and held its first classes in his former residence.


In 1908, the Congressman from Alabama, Mr. [[James Thomas Heflin]], in describing both recently deceased Senators Edmund Pettus and John Tyler Morgan said the following, “the ballot, that which represented privileges and powers for which the quick-witted Celt and the thoughtful Saxon had struggled a thousand years to achieve, was given in the twinkling of an eye to the unfit hordes of an inferior race. . . .No two men in Alabama, or in the South, did more to stay the hideous tide of negro domination than the two dearly beloved Senators whose death the House mourns to-day. In the dark and trying days of reconstruction these two men were foremost among the defenders of Anglo-Saxon civilization.” See: "John Tyler Morgan and Edmund Winston Pettus- Memorial Addresses-Sixtieth Congress, First Session, Senate of the United States, April 18, 1908. House of Representatives, April 25, 1908," ed. United States Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1909). 188-189.
{{start box}}
 
{{succession box |
==Notable quotes==
  before= [[George Goldwaite]] |
 
  title= U. S. Senator (Class 2) from Alabama |
"The snows will fall from heaven in sooty blackness, sooner than the white women of the United States will consent to the maternity of negro families."
  years=[[1877]]-[[1907]] |
 
  after= [[John H. Bankhead]]
"It has become the solemn necessity on our part to protect the Caucasian race on this continent against the intrusion of Oriental people."
}}
 
{{end box}}
==Memorialization==
* In 1953, Morgan was elected to membership in the [[Alabama Hall of Fame]].
 
* John T. Morgan Academy in Selma is named for Morgan. Founded in 1965, the [[segregation academy]] originally held classes in [[John Tyler Morgan House|Morgan's old house]].
 
* Morgan Hall on the campus of the [[University of Alabama]] was also named in his honor. Senator Morgan had successfully led a fight in 1882 to obtain Federal funds in reparation for the university's destruction in 1865 by Union forces. On December 18, 2015, Morgan's portrait was removed from the university building bearing his name.
 
* Morgan's Rock Hacienda and Ecolodge, [http://www.morgansrock.com] in the country of [[Nicaragua]] was named for Morgan, who as a Senator had strongly advocated Nicaragua as the preferred location for an interoceanic [[canal]], instead of [[Panama]].
 
* A memorial arch on the grounds of the Federal Building / U.S. Courthouse in Selma honors Senators Morgan and Pettus, who were instrumental in securing Federal appropriations for the State.


==References==
==References==
* Fry, Joseph A., ''John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy'', Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992, ISBN 0-87049-753-7.
* Warner, Ezra J. (1959) ''Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders'', Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press ISBN 0807108235
* Warner, Ezra J., ''Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders'', Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5.
* Fry, Joseph A.(1985) "John Tyler Morgan's Southern Expansionism," ''Diplomatic History''
* [http://morganreport.org morganreport.org] Online images and transcriptions of the entire Morgan Report
* Fry, Joseph A. (1992) ''John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy'', Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press ISBN 0870497537.
* [http://www.archives.state.al.us/famous/j_morgan.html Alabama Hall of Fame bio]
* Upchurch, Thomas Adams (April 2004) "Senator John Tyler Morgan and the Genesis of Jim Crow Ideology, 1889-1891." ''Alabama Review''
* Upchurch, Thomas Adams (May 28, 2014) "[http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1508 John Tyler Morgan]". Encyclopedia of Alabama - accessed February 22, 2016


==External links==
==External links==
* [http://archive.org/stream/menofmarkinamerica00gate#page/n235/mode/2up Men of Mark in America] Biography & Portrait
* [http://www.archives.state.al.us/famous/j_morgan.html John Tyler Morgan] at the Alabama Hall of Fame
* {{Find a Grave|8760}}
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=8760 John Tyler Morgan] at Findagrave.com
 
* [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CDOC-107sdoc11/pdf/GPO-CDOC-107sdoc11-2-89.pdf Carl Gutherz's 1893 portrait of Morgan]
 
|state=Alabama
|class=2
|before=[[George Goldthwaite]]
|after=[[John H. Bankhead]]
|alongside=[[George E. Spencer]], [[George S. Houston]], [[Luke Pryor]], [[James L. Pugh]] and [[Edmund Pettus|Edmund W. Pettus]]
|years=1877–1907}}-->


{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, John T.}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morgan, John T.}}
[[Category:1824 births]]
[[Category:1824 births]]
[[Category:1907 deaths]]
[[Category:1907 deaths]]
[[Category:Attorneys]]
[[Category:U.S. Senators]]
[[Category:U.S. Senators]]
[[Category:Confederate veterans]]
[[Category:Confederate veterans]]
[[Category:Ku Klux Klan]]
[[Category:Ku Klux Klan]]
[[Category:Alabama Hall of Fame]]

Latest revision as of 11:53, 22 February 2016

John Tyler Morgan

John Tyler Morgan (born June 20, 1824 in Athens, Tennessee; died June 11, 1907 in Washington D.C.) was a Confederate brigadier general, Klan leader and six-term U.S. Senator.

Morgan was the son of George Washington and Mary Frances Irby Morgan. He was educated at home by his mother until moving with the family to Calhoun County in 1833, where he began attending a local frontier school taught by Charles Samuel. He continued his education by reading law under his brother-in-law, Judge William Chilton, in Tuskegee. Upon his admission to the Alabama State Bar he opened a practice in Talladega. After a decade, he relocated to Selma, and also opened an office in the former capital of Cahaba. On February 11, 1846 he married Cornelia Willis of Talladega County. They had five children, two of whom died as infants and were buried at their mother's family's Thornhill plantation. Their son, John H., died in a boating accident in the Potomac in 1885. Their oldest daughter, Mary, served as her father's secretary and died in North Carolina in 1909. The other daughter, Cornelia, lived to 1944.

Morgan was active in local politics and earned a position as an aid to prominent secessionist William Yancey. He was an elector at the Southern Democrats' convention in Baltimore, Maryland that nominated John C. Breckenridge for president in 1860. He was also a delegate to the Alabama Secession Convention of January 1861.

During the Civil War Morgan enlisted as a private in the Cahaba Rifles, and was assigned to the 5th Alabama Infantry. He participated in the first Battle of Manassas and was later promoted to Major and then to Lieutenant Colonel under Robert E. Rhodes. He resigned from service in 1862, but quickly returned to the war, helping organize the 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers and serving as its Colonel at the Battle of Murfreesborough.

Morgan during the Civil War

Morgan declined an offer to follow Rhodes into the Army of Northern Virginia and remained in the west, commanding troops at the Battle of Chickamauga. He was promoted to Brigadier General, commanding the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 9th and 51st Alabama Cavalry regiments during the Knoxville Campaign. His forces were routed by Union cavalry on January 27, 1864 and he was reassigned to the Atlanta Campaign, harassing federal troops under William T. Sherman during his "March to the Sea" across Georgia. Morgan spent the last days of the war attempting to organize former slaves into a home guard to oppose the depredations of occupation by Federal troops.

Following the end of the war, Morgan resumed his practice in Selma. After James Clanton was killed in a duel in Knoxville, Morgan succeeded him as Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama. He also returned to politics, aiding the state Democratic party in its successful efforts to retake the state legislature from Reconstruction Republicans in 1875.

In 1876 Morgan again served as an elector for Democrat Samuel Tilden, who won the popular vote but narrowly lost to Rutherford Hayes in the electoral college. Morgan was also elected by the Alabama State Legislature to represent the state in the U.S. Senate. The state's senior senator, George Spencer, a native of New York elected by Alabama's Reconstruction legislature, moved to block his confirmation, but was unsuccessful. Morgan was re-elected in 1882, 1888, 1894 and 1906, serving from March 5, 1877 until his death.

At various times during his five terms as Senator, Morgan chaired the Senate Rules Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, the Committee on Inter-oceanic Canals and the Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine. He was known as a highly-intelligent debater, and once joked that with enough preparation he could talk for three days for or against a bill, but, if unprepared, he could continue indefinitely.

Morgan was among the Senate's most vocal white supremacists, supporting the proliferation of "Jim Crow" laws to reinstitute political and economic impotence and social segregation for African-Americans. His filibuster of the Federal Elections Bill of 1890, along with his numerous published writings on the subject, was credited with turning the public against the idea of having federal troops stationed at polling places to enforce voting rights. He was involved in efforts to repeal the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and to resettle African-Americans outside the continental United States.

At the same time, Morgan was a leader for Democrats championing the Monroe Doctrine. He pushed for expanded global trade, hoping to boost Alabama's economy through the export of cotton, coal, iron and timber to new overseas markets. To that end he supported enlargement of the U.S. Navy and merchant marine, and the annexation of far-flung territories as spoils from the Spanish-American War. He championed a planned canal through Nicaragua to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. That canal ultimately was constructed through the isthmus of Panama. Morgan was also a vocal supporter of José Martí's efforts to liberate Cuba from Spanish rule, with the hope that it would become part of the United States.

Morgan also lobbied for reparations from the federal government to rebuild the campus of the University of Alabama, which had been burned by U.S. troops in April 1865.

President Harrison appointed him as an arbiter in a controversy over Bering Sea fisheries in 1892. In 1894 Morgan chaired the Senate investigation into the Hawaiian Revolution. He visited the Hawaiian islands in 1897 to support their annexation into the United States. President McKinley appointed him in July 1898 to the commission charged with establishing a territorial government in Hawaii.

In June 1907 Morgan died in Washington D.C. three months after being sworn in for his fifth term in the Senate. John H. Bankhead of Jasper was appointed to fill his remaining term. In the House of Representatives on April 25, 1908 Alabama congressman Tom Heflin remembered Morgan and his colleague, Edmund Pettus, as men who did more than than any others to "stay the hideous tide of negro domination," by reversing Reconstruction-era political reforms.

Morgan's body was transported to Selma for burial in that city's Live Oak Cemetery. Afterward the remains of his widow and son, who had predeceased him while they were living in Washington and had been buried in Rock Creek Cemetery there, were exhumed and re-interred alongside him in Selma. They were joined by the younger daughter Cornelia after her death in 1944.

Shortly after his death, the newly-completed Morgan Hall at the University of Alabama was named in Senator Morgan's honor. He was inducted into the Alabama Hall of Fame in 1953. Selma's John T. Morgan Academy, founded in 1965 as a "segregation academy," was named for the former Senator and held its first classes in his former residence.

Preceded by:
George Goldwaite 		U. S. Senator (Class 2) from Alabama
1877-1907 		Succeeded by:
John H. Bankhead

References

  • Warner, Ezra J. (1959) Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press ISBN 0807108235
  • Fry, Joseph A.(1985) "John Tyler Morgan's Southern Expansionism," Diplomatic History
  • Fry, Joseph A. (1992) John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy, Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press ISBN 0870497537.
  • Upchurch, Thomas Adams (April 2004) "Senator John Tyler Morgan and the Genesis of Jim Crow Ideology, 1889-1891." Alabama Review
  • Upchurch, Thomas Adams (May 28, 2014) "John Tyler Morgan". Encyclopedia of Alabama - accessed February 22, 2016

External links

Retrieved from "http://bhamwiki.com/w/index.php?title=John_Tyler_Morgan&oldid=124139"