Justin Smith Morrill

Infobox Senator
name=Justin Smith Morrill

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jr/sr=United States Senator
state=Vermont
party=Whig, Republican
term=March 4, 1867 – December 28, 1898
preceded=Luke P. Poland
succeeded=Jonathan Ross
date of birth=April 14, 1810
place of birth=Strafford, Vermont, USA
date of death=December 28, 1898
place of death=Washington, D.C., USA
spouse=
profession=Politician, Merchant, Clerk

Justin Smith Morrill (April 14, 1810 – December 28, 1898) was a Representative (1855–1867) and a Senator (1867–1898) from Vermont, most widely remembered today for the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act that established federal funding for establishing many of the United States' public colleges and universities.

Biography

Born in Strafford, Vermont, Morrill attended the common schools and Thetford and Randolph Academies. While he never attended university, he was granted an honorary degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1884. He worked as a merchant’s clerk in Strafford 1825–1828 and in Portland, Maine, 1828–1831; merchant in Strafford 1831–1848; engaged in agriculture and horticulture 1848–1855. He was initiated into the Delta Upsilon Fraternity as an honorary member in 1860.Fact|date=January 2008

In 1852 Morrill was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-fourth Congress and as a Republican to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1855–March 3, 1867). He was the author of the Tariff Act of 1861 as well as the college land-grant act mentioned above. He served as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the Thirty-ninth Congress.

In 1866 Morrill was elected as a Union Republican to the U.S. Senate. He was reelected as a Republican in 1872, 1878, 1884, 1890, and again in 1896, and served from March 4, 1867, until his death, almost thirty-one years. He served as chairman of the Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds (Forty-first through Forty-fourth Congresses) where he played a vital role in obtaining the current Library of Congress main building through his work on the Joint Select Committee on Additional Accommodations for the Library. He also served on the Committee on Finance (Forty-fifth, Forty-seventh through Fifty-second, Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Congresses), as regent of the Smithsonian Institution 1883–1898 and as trustee of the University of Vermont 1865–1898. He died in Washington, D.C., December 28, 1898. He is buried in the City Cemetery in Strafford, Vermont.

Legislation

Justin Smith Morrill is most widely known for sponsoring the Morrill Act, also known as the Land Grant College Act. This act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. This act established federal funding for higher education in every state of the country. In his own words:

:"This bill proposes to establish at least one college in every State upon a sure and perpetual foundation, accessible to all, but especially to the sons of toil, where all of needful science for the practical avocations of life shall be taught, where neither the higher graces of classical studies nor that military drill our country now so greatly appreciates will be entirely ignored, and where agriculture, the foundation of all present and future prosperity, may look for troops of earnest friends, studying its familiar and recondite economies, and at last elevating it to that higher level where it may fearlessly invoke comparison with the most advanced standards of the world.":—1862, as quoted by William Belmont Parker, "The Life and Public Services of Justin Smith Morrill"

Many colleges established under this act have a 'Morrill Hall' named in honor of Justin Smith Morrill's contribution to higher education. In 1999, the U.S. Postal Service issued a 55 cent postage stamp of Morrill to honor his role in establishing the land grant colleges, the forerunners of many state universities.

He is also well known in some circles for his authorship of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act of 1862, which targeted The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, based on the then-existing practice of plural marriage (polygamy). On January 6, 1879, in "Reynolds v. United States" the Supreme Court, the court upheld the 1862 Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act banning plural marriage.

References

*Cross, Coy F. "Justin Smith Morrill Father of the Land-Grant Colleges." Michigan State University Press: 1999. ISBN 9780870135088.
*"Memorial Address on the Life and Character of Justin S. Morrill." Government Printing Office: 1899.

External links

* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7179931 Justin Smith Morrill] at Find A Grave
* [http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/instruct/isern/morrill.htm NDSU shrine to Morrill]
* [http://historicvermont.org/morrill/ Vermont Division for Historic Preservation]
* [http://www.morrillhomestead.org Friends of the Morrill Homestead]