University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

Page 10 text:

I O HELIOTYPE PRINTING co., aosrou I

Page 9 text:

dtxgtirc Smith Morriii attatfsaie SKETCH, though but a brief and imperfect one, of this veteran legislator, the Nestor of Congress and illustrious friend of educa- tion, should have interest for every reader of the Ariel. Nlr. Nlorrill was born in Strafford, Vt., April 14, 1810, being the son of Nathaniel Nlorrill, and grandson of Smith Morrill, who was one of the pioneers of that town. The father of Senator Morrill was a success- ful farmer and manufacturer. His son, the distinguished subject of this sketch, received his early education in the public schools and local acad- emy. At the age of fifteen he stepped behind the counter of a Strafford merchant as a clerk, and obtained further mercantile experience in the successive employ of two prominent merchants in Portland, Nle. In 1829 he returned to Strafford to become the commercial partner of the late Judge Jedediah Harris, who was the leading merchant in Stratford, an extensive farmer, and an eminent citizen of- that county and of the State. This business connection was terminated only by the death of Judge Harris, in 1855. Seven years previous to that event, however, Mr. Morrill ceased to give his personal attention to the business, and devoted himself chiefly to agricultural pursuits. From his boyhood Nlr. Nlorrill had given what of his waking hours was not occupied in regular labor to books. While a clerk he read through Blackstone's Commentaries, and in subsequent years he pur- sued a self-directed course of reading of standard and classical authors. He was thus storing his retentive memory with facts, and fitting himself, consciously or unconsciously, for public life and national usefulness and fame. Until he was forty-four years old, however, he had neither sought nor held any public office higher than that of a Justice of the Peace, although in the circle of his numerous acquaintance he had become known as a man of much more than ordinary intellectual ability, of remarkable balance of judgment, of marked business capacity, of uni- form courtesy and of pleasing personal address. Suddenly he stepped to the front. ln 1854 the late Andrew Tracy, of Woodstock, Representa- 4

Page 11 text:

tive of the Second Congressional District in Congress, after a single term, declined to be a candidate for re-election. Mr. Morrill was sug- gested by some discerning friends as a fit man to succeed him. The sug- gestion found favor, and he received the nomination of the Whig Con- vention of the district. lt was a notable compliment to be paid to a quiet and studious farmer, who had never even represented his town in the Legislature. A third party candidate drew off 2000 votes from him, but Mr. Morrill was elected by a small majority, and took his seat in the thirty-fourth Congress on the 3d of December, 1855. He had been elected as a Whig, but the Whig party was then in the throes of dissolu- tion, and when he appeared at Washington it was as a representative of the new Republican party, in the organization of which in Vermont he had taken part, and of whose principles he became the earnest advo- cate. He soon made his mark as an intelligent legislator. He opposed the tariff bill of 1857 in a speech which attracted wide attention. He carried through the House the first bill against Mormon polygamy. Con- scious that a college education would have been of great value to him- self in public life, he resolved to do what he could through national legis- lation to promote liberal and practical education for the youth of our land. He introduced the first billto grant public lands for the support of agricultural, scientific and industrial colleges, and advocated it in an able speech. lt was vetoed by President Buchanan but was again intro- duced by Mr. Morrill in 1862, and, through his auie management, it became a law. Under this zct forty-seven land-grant colleges have been organized in the various States, with 500 professors and over 5030 students. The national bounty has called out State aid in large amounts, and the act, supplemented by the recent act Qalso carried through by Mr. Morrillj increasing the fund placed at the disposal of these institutions, has given an immense impulse to liberal rand industrial education, and will confer incalculable benefits upon the rising generations of our land. Mr. Morrill was five times re-elected to the House, by majorities ranging from 7000 to 9000, and grew steadily in standing and influence in the lower branch of Congress till, in the thirty-ninth Congress, he held the leading position of chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and it was said of him, with truth, that his influence in the House was greater than that of any other member, with the exception of Thaddeus Stevens. Among the important speeches made by him during the criti- cal.. period before the civil war was one in support of a report, also mad: 5