John Tyler Morgan

John Tyler Morgan

John Tyler Morgan (born June 20, 1824 in Athens , McMinn County , Tennessee , †  June 11, 1907 in Washington DC ) was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . After the war, he represented the state of Alabama in the US Senate for six terms .

Throughout his life he was an advocate of strict segregation and a leading member of the racist secret society Ku Klux Klan . Politically, he supported the expansion policy of the United States and advocated the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii and the construction of a canal to connect the Atlantic with the Pacific Ocean in Central America under US leadership, but favored Nicaragua as a location instead of Panama .

Beginnings of his career

Morgan was born in Tennessee and initially tutored by his mother. In 1833 he moved with his family to Calhoun County , where he attended pioneer schools. He graduated in Tuskegee , Alabama with his brother, the judge William Parish Chilton , a degree in law . After he was admitted, he set up a practice in Talladega , Alabama. Ten years later, he moved to Dallas County and practiced in Selma and Cahawba .

He then turned to politics and in 1860 was a participant in the Electoral College for the Democrats in favor of John Cabell Breckinridge . In 1861 he became a Dallas County's delegate to the state conference that approved secession .

Civil war

After Alabama voted to join the Confederate States of America , Morgan, already 37, enrolled as a private with the Cahawba Rifles, who volunteered in the Confederate Army, and became the 5th Alabama Assigned to Infantry Regiment. In the summer of 1861 he took part in his first engagement during the First Battle of Manassas . Morgan was quickly promoted to major and then lieutenant colonel , reporting to Colonel Robert E. Rodes , a later Confederate general. In 1862 he resigned and returned to Alabama, where in August he recruited a new regiment, the 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers, of which he became commander. He led the force in the Battle of Murfreesboro , where he operated with the cavalry of Nathan Bedford Forrest . The Confederates suffered defeat.

When Rodes was promoted to major general, he was given command of a division in the Northern Virginia Army . Morgan turned down the offer to take over the former Brigade von Rodes and instead stayed in the western theater of civil war. He led the regiment in the battle of Chickamauga , which the southerners won. On November 16, 1863 he was promoted to brigadier general of the cavalry and took part in the Knoxville campaign . His brigade consisted of the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 9th and 51st Cavalry Regiments of Alabama.

His men were beaten and dispersed by Northern troops on January 27, 1864 . He was reassigned and Morgan eventually fought during the Atlanta campaign . He was later given an administrative post in Demopolis , Alabama. When the Confederate States Army collapsed and the war neared its end, Morgan made an attempt to set up units consisting of African-Americans for home defense.

Post war career

Morgan, about 1875

After the war, Morgan resumed his work as a lawyer in Selma. He was again electoral for the Democrats in the 1876 ​​presidential election and was elected to the Senate that same year . He took office on March 4, 1877 and was re-elected in 1882, 1888, 1894, 1900 and 1906. He spent most of his tenure, which ended with his death, in the company of another former Confederate general , Edmund Pettus .

Morgan advocated the separation of blacks and whites in the United States and advocated sending colored people to Hawaii , Cuba and the Philippines , the latter, in his opinion, probably a "natural home of the negroes" due to its great distance.

He tabled a number of legislative initiatives, including legalizing lynching, and fought tirelessly for the 15th Amendment to be withdrawn . This prohibited the rejection of the right to vote on the basis of race . Morgan served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules (46th Congress), the Senate Committee on External Relations (53rd Congress), the Senate Committee on the Inter-Oceans Channel (56th and 57th Congress), and the Senate Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine (59th Congress). In 1894, Morgan led an investigation, the result of which became known as the Morgan Report , that looked at the Hawai'i revolution. The report found that the United States had remained completely neutral on the matter. Morgan wrote the introduction to the report based on the findings of the committee of inquiry.

Morgan was a strong proponent of the annexation of Hawaii and visited the island in 1897 to support the plan. He believed that the history of the United States clearly showed that it was not necessary to hold a referendum in Hawaii in order to be annexed .

Death and political legacy

Senator Morgan died in Washington while he was still in office. He found his final resting place in the Live Oak Cemetery in Selma. For the remainder of the term, the mandate fell to John H. Bankhead .

Its importance for American politics is described by the historian Thomas Adams Upchurch:

“His congressional speeches and published writings demonstrate the central role Morgan played in the racial drama of 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 racial relations from the 1890s through the 1960s. Indeed, Morgan turned out to be the most famous and infamous racist ideologue of his day, a man who, more than any other individual, set the tone for the emerging Jim Crow era . "

- Thomas Adams Upchurch

Commemoration

In 1953, Morgan was inducted into the Alabama Hall of Fame . The private school John T. Morgan Academy in Selma, founded in 1965, is named after him and started its work in Morgan's old house.

The University of Alabama was Morgan Hall on the campus of the name of the senator who was successful in 1882 and reparations prevailed from federal funds to compensate for the destruction of the University in 1865 by Union troops.

A memorial in the grounds of the Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Selma honors Senators Morgan and Pettus for their roles in determining federal government grants to Alabama. The Liberty cargo ship USS John Morgan was named after John Tyler Morgan.

literature

• Warner, Ezra J., Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders , Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. 1959, ISBN 0-8071-0823-5 . (English)

Web links

• John Tyler Morgan in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• John Tyler Morgan in the database of Find a Grave (English)
• morganreport.org images and full transcription of the Morgan Report
• Biography on the website of the Alabama Hall of Fame (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Adam Hochschild : King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. Mariner Books; 1st edition (October 1999), pages 79-80.
2. ↑ Democrats and Republicans: In Their Own Words ( Memento of the original dated August 12, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  

   "According to prominent Democrat leader AW Terrell of Texas, the 15th Amendment was what he called 'the political blunder of the century.' Democratic US Rep. Bourke Cockran of New York and Democratic US Senator John Tyler Morgan of Alabama agreed with Terrell and were among the Democrats seeking a repeal of the 15th Amendment. "

3. ↑ Senator John Tyler Morgan and the Genesis of Jim Crow Ideology, 1889-1891 ( Memento of the original from July 15, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Alabama Review, Apr 2004 

   “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 era. "