Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 4).djvu/472

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432
MORTON
MORTON

before Fort Sumter was fired upon, and when President Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers he offered to send 10,000 froni Indiana. The state's quota was raised at once. He reconvened the legislature on 24 April, obtained au- thority to borrow $2,000,000, and dis- played great energy and ability in plac- ing troops in the field and provid- ing for their care and sustenance. He gave permission to citizens of Indiana to raise troops in Kentucky, allowed Kentuckyregiments to be recruited from

the population of

two of the southern counties, procured arms for the volunteer bodies enlisted for the defence of Kentucky, and by thus co-operating with the Unionists in that state did much toward establishing the ascendency of the National gov- ernment within its borders. When the question of the abolition of slaveiy arose, the popular ma- jority no longer upheld the governor in his support of the National administration. In 1862 a Demo- cratic legislature was chosen, which refused to re- ceive the governor's message, and was on the point of taking from him the command of the militia, when the Republican members withdrew, leaving both houses without a quox'um. In order to carry on the state government and pay the state bonds, he obtained advances from banks and county boards, and appointed a bureau of finance, which, from April, 1863, till January, 1865, made all dis- bursements of the state, amounting to more than $1,000,000. During this period he refused to sum- mon the legislature. The supreme court con- demned this arbitrary course, but the people sub- sequently applauded his action, and the state as- sumed the obligations that he incurred. The draft laws provoked the Secessionists in Indiana to form secret organizations and commit outrages on Union men. They plotted against the life of Gov. Morton and arranged a general insurrection, to take place in August, 1864. The governor discovered their plans and arrested the leaders of the Knights of the golden circle, or Sons of liberty, as the associa- tion was called. In 1864 he was nominated for governor, and defeated Joseph E. McDonald by 20,883 votes, after an animated joint canvass. He resigned in January, 1867, to take his seat in the U. S. senate, to which he was re-elected in 1873. In the senate he was chairman of the committee on privileges and elections and the leader of the Republicans, and for several years he exercised a determining influence over the political course of the party. On the question of reconstruction he supported the severest measures toward the south- ern states and their citizens. He labored zealously to secure the passage of the 15th amendment to the constitution, was active in the impeachment pro- ceedings against President Johnson, and was the trusted adviser of the Republicans of the south. After supporting the Santo Domingo treaty he was offered the English mission by President Grant, but declined, lest his state should send a Demo- crat to succeed him in the senate. At the Repub- lican National convention in 1876 Mr. Morton, in the earlier ballots, received next to the highest number of votes for the presidential nomination. He was a member of the electoral commission of 1877. After having a paralytic stroke in 1865 he was never again able to stand without support, yet there was no abatement in his power as a debater or in the effectiveness of his forcible popular ora- tory. Immediately after his return from Europe,, whither he had gone to consult specialists in nervous diseases, he delivered, in 1866, a political speech, of which moi'e than 1,000,000 copies were circulated in pamphlet-form. After visiting Ore- gon in the spring of 1877 as chairman of a sena- torial committee to investigate the election of Lafayette Grover, he had another attack of paraly- sis, and died soon after reaching his home. See "Life and Public Services of Oliver Perry Mor- ton " (Indianapolis, 1876).


MORTON, Robert, diarist, b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 30 Oct., 1760; d. there, 17 Aug., 1786. He was- the son of Samuel Morton, a merchant of Phila- delphia. During the time the British army occu- pied that city young Morton, although then only sixteen years old. kept a diary (published in " Penn. Mag. of History," vol. i., 1877), which possesses much interest, and shows him to have been a youth possessed of a well-cultivated mind, a facility of expression, and large observation.


MORTON, Samuel George, phvsician. b. in Philadelphia, Pa., 26 Jan., 1799 ; d. there, 15 May, 1851. He was educated in the strictest school of orthodox Friends, and originally destined for com- mercial pursuits, but studied medicine under Dr. Joseph Parrish, of Philadelphia, and was graduated at the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1820. and at that of the University of Edinburgh in 1823. On his return to Philadel- phia the next year he began the practice of his profession, became an active member of the Acade- my of natural sciences, was recording secretary of that body in 1825, and president in 1850. During the early part of his professional career geology was his favorite pursuit, and the results of his studies were embodied in an " Analysis of Tabular Spar from Bucks County, Pa." (Philadelphia, 1827), and a " Synopsis of the Organic Remains of the Cretaceous Group of the United States " (1834). He was professor of anatomy in Pennsylvania college in 1839-'43, and for several years a clinical teacher at the city Alms-house hospital. He began a collection of skulls in 1830, and thus relates its origin: "Having had occasion in the summer of 1830 to deliver an introductory lecture to a course of anatomy, I chose for my subject ' The Different Forms of the Skull as exhibited in the Five Races of Man.' . I could neither buy nor borrow a cranium for each of these races, and I finished my discourse without showing either the Mongolian or the Malay. Impressed with this deficiency in a most important branch of science, I at once resolved to make a collection for myself." His efforts resulted in the largest museum of comparative craniology in existence, containing about 1,500 specimens, 90O of which were human, and which were obtained from widely separated regions. It now belongs to the Philadelphia academy of natural sciences. Dr. Morton finally adopted the theory of a diverse origin of the human race, on which subject he maintained a once celebrated controversy with Rev. John Bachman, of Charleston, S. C. The result of his investigations, as bearing on the American aborigines, is embodied in " Crania Americana, or a Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Aboriginal Nations of North and South America," to which is prefixed an essay on the "Varieties of the Human Species" (Philadelphia,