Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals Volume II Part 31

He was hard hit for a time by this unjust decision, and his correspondence shows that he regretted it most because it prevented him from bestowing as much in good works as he desired. He was obliged to refuse many requests which strongly appealed to him. His daily mail contained numerous requests for a.s.sistance in sums "from twenty thousand dollars to fifty cents," and it was always with great reluctance that he refused anybody anything.

However, as is usual in this life, the gay was mingled with the grave, and we find that he was one of the committee of prominent men to arrange for the entertainment of the Prince of Wales, afterward Edward VII, on his visit to this country. I have already referred to one incident of this visit when Morse, in an address to the Prince at the University of the City of New York, referred to the kindness shown him in London by the Earl of Lincoln, who was now the Duke of Newcastle and was in the suite of the Prince. Morse had hoped that he might have the privilege of entertaining H.R.H. at his country place on the Hudson, but the Duke of Newcastle, in a letter of October 8, 1860, regrets that this cannot be managed:--

I a.s.sure you I have not forgotten the circ.u.mstances which gave me the pleasure of your acquaintance in 1839, and I am very desirous of seeing you again during my short visit to this continent. I fear however that a visit by the Prince of Wales to your home, however I might wish it, is quite impracticable, although on our journey up the Hudson we shall pa.s.s so near you. Every hour of our time is fully engaged.

Is there any chance of seeing you in New York, or, if not, is there any better hope in Boston? If you should be in either during our stay, I hope you will be kind enough to call upon me. Pray let me have a line on Thursday at New York. I have lately been much interested in some electro-telegraphic inventions of yours which are new to me.

I am Yours very truly, NEWCASTLE.

Referring to another function in honor of the Prince, Morse says, in a letter to Mr. Kendall: "I did not see you after the so-styled Ball in New York, which was not a _ball_ but a _levee_ and a great jam. I hope you and yours suffered no inconvenience from it."

The war clouds in his beloved country were now lowering most ominously, and, true to his convictions, he exclaims in a letter to a friend of January 12, 1861:--

"Our politicians are playing with edged tools. It is easy to raise a storm by those who cannot control it. If I trusted at all in them I should despair of the country, but an Almighty arm makes the wrath of man to praise him, and he will restrain the rest. There is something so unnatural and abhorrent in this outcry of _arms_ in one great family that I cannot believe it will come to a decision by the sword. Such counsels of force are in the court of pa.s.sion, not of reason. Imagine such a conflict, imagine a victory, no matter by which side. Can the victors rejoice in the blood of brethren shed in a family brawl? Whose heart will thrill with pride at such success? No, no. I should as soon think of rejoicing that one of my sons had killed the other in a brawl.

"But I have not time to add. I hope for the best, and even can see beyond the clouds of the hour a brighter day. G.o.d bless the whole family, North, South, East and West. I will never divide them in my heart however they may be politically or geographically divided."

His hopes of a peaceful solution of the questions at issue between the North and the South were, of course, destined to be cruelly dashed, and he suffered much during the next few years, both in his feelings and in his purse, on account of the war. I have already shown that he, with many other pious men, believed that slavery was a divine inst.i.tution and that, therefore, the abolitionists were entirely in the wrong; but that, at the same time, he was unalterably opposed to secession. Holding these views, he was misjudged in both sections of the country. Those at the North accused him of being a secessionist because he was not an abolitionist, and many at the South held that he must be an abolitionist because he lived at the North and did not believe in the doctrine of secession. Many pages of his letter-books are filled with vehement arguments upholding his point of view, and he, together with many other eminent men at the North, strove without success to avert the war. His former pastor at Poughkeepsie, the Reverend H.G. Ludlow, in long letters, with many Bible quotations, called upon him to repent him of his sins and join the cause of righteousness. He, in still longer letters, indignantly repelled the accusation of error, and quoted chapter and verse in support of his views. He was made the president of The American Society for promoting National Unity, and in one of his letters to Mr. Ludlow he uses forceful language:--

"The tone of your letter calls for extraordinary drafts on Christian charity. Your criticism upon and denunciation of a society planned in the interests of peace and good will to all, inaugurated by such men as Bishops McIlvaine and Hopkins, Drs. Krebs and Hutton, and Winslow, and Bliss, and Van d.y.k.e, and Hawks, and Seabury, and Lord and Adams of Boston, and Wilson the missionary, and Styles and Boorman, and Professor Owen, and President Woods, and Dr. Parker, and my brothers, and many others as warm-hearted, praying, conscientious Christians as ever a.s.sembled to devise means for promoting peace--denunciations of these and such as these cannot but be painful in the highest degree.... I lay no stress upon these names other than to show that conscience in this matter has moved some Christians quite as strongly to view _Abolitionism_ as a sin of the deepest dye, as it has other Christian minds to view Slavery as a sin, and so to condemn slaveholders to excommunication, and simply for being slaveholders.

"Who is to decide in a conflict of consciences? If the Bible be the umpire, as I hold it to be, then it is the Abolitionist that is denounced as worthy of excommunication; it is the Abolitionist from whom we are commanded to withdraw ourselves, while not a syllable of reproof do I find in the sacred volume administered to those who maintain, in the spirit of the gospel, the relation of _Masters and Slaves_. If you have been more successful, please point out chapter and verse.... I have no justification to offer for Southern _secession_; I have always considered it a remedy for nothing. It is, indeed, an expression of a sense of wrong, but, in turn, is itself a wrong, and two wrongs do not make a right."

I have quoted thus at some length from one of his many polemics to show the absolute and fearless sincerity of the man, mistaken though he may have been in his major premise.

I shall quote from other letters on this subject as they appear in chronological order, but as no person of any mental caliber thinks and acts continuously along one line of endeavor, so will it be necessary in a truthful biography to change from one subject of activity to another, and then back again, in order to portray in their proper sequence the thoughts and actions of a man which go to make up his personality. For instance, while the outspoken views which Morse held on the subjects of slavery and secession made him many enemies, he was still held in high esteem, for it was in the year 1861 that the members of the National Academy of Design urged him so strongly to become their president again that he yielded, but on condition that it should be for one year only.

And the following letter to Matthew Va.s.sar, of Poughkeepsie, dated February 1, 1861, shows that he was actively interested in the foundation of the first college for women in this country: "Your favor of the 24th ulto. is received, and so far as I can further your magnificent and most generous enterprise, I will do so. I will endeavor to attend the meeting at the Gregory House on the 26th of the present month. May you long live to see your n.o.ble design in successful operation."

In spite of his deep anxiety for the welfare of his country, and in spite of the other cares which weighed him down, he could not resist the temptation to indulge in humor when the occasion offered. This humor is tinged with sarcasm in a letter of July 13, 1861, to Mr. A.B. Griswold, his wife's brother, a prominent citizen of New Orleans. After a.s.suring him of his undiminished affection, he adds:--

"And now see what a risk I have run by saying thus much, for, according to modern application of the definition of _treason_, it would not be difficult to prove me a traitor, and therefore amenable to the halter.

"For instance--treason is giving aid and comfort to the enemy; everybody south of a certain geographical line is an enemy; you live south of that line, ergo you are an enemy; I send you my love, you being an enemy; this gives you _comfort_; ergo, I have given comfort to the enemy; ergo, I am a traitor; ergo, I must be hanged."

As the war progressed he continued to express himself in forcible language against what he called the "twin heresies"--abolitionism and secession. He had done his best to avert the war. He describes his efforts in a letter of April 2, 1862, to Mr. George L. Douglas, of Louisville, Kentucky, who at that time was prominently connected with the Southern lines of the telegraph, and who had loyally done all in his power to safeguard Morse's interests in those lines:--

"You are correct in saying, in your answer as garnishee, that I have been an active and decided friend of Peace. In the early stages of the troubles, when the Southern Commissioners were in Was.h.i.+ngton, I devoted my time and influence and property, subscribing and paying in the outset five hundred dollars, to set on foot measures for preserving peace honorable to all parties. The attack on Fort Sumter struck down all these efforts (so far as my a.s.sociates were concerned), but I was not personally discouraged, and I again addressed myself to the work of the Peacemaker, determining to visit _personally_ both sections of the country, the Government at Was.h.i.+ngton, and the Government of the Confederates at Richmond, to ascertain if there were, by possibility, any means of averting war. And when, from physical inability and age, I was unable to undertake the duty personally, I defrayed from my own pocket the expenses of a friend in his performance of the same duties for me, who actually visited both Was.h.i.+ngton and Richmond and conferred with the Presidents and chiefs of each section on the subject. True his efforts were unsuccessful, and so nothing remained for me but to retire to the quiet of my own study and watch the vicissitudes of the awful storm which I was powerless to avert, and descry the first signs of any clearing up, ready to take advantage of the earliest glimmerings of light through the clouds."

He had no doubts as to the ultimate issue of the conflict, for, in a letter to his wife's sister, Mrs. Goodrich, of May 2, 1862, he reduces it to mathematics:--

"Sober men could calculate, and did calculate, the _military_ issue, for it was a problem of mathematics and not at all of individual or comparative courage. A force of equal quality is to be divided and the two parts to be set in opposition to each other. If equally divided, they will be at rest; if one part equals 3 and the other 9, it does not require much knowledge of mathematics to decide which part will overcome the force of the other.

"Now this is the case here just now. Two thirds of the physical and material force of the country are at the North, and on this account _military_ success, other things being equal, must be on the side of the North. Courage, justness of the cause, right, have nothing to do with it.

War in our days is a game of chess. Two players being equal, if one begins the game with dispensing with a third of his best pieces, the other wins as a matter of course."

He was firmly of the opinion that England and other European nations had fomented, if they had not originated, the bad feeling between the North and the South, and at times he gave way to the most gloomy forebodings, as in a letter of July 23, 1862, to Mr. Kendall, who shared his views on the main questions at issue:--

"I am much depressed. There is no light in the political skies. Rabid abolitionism, with its intense, infernal hate, intensified by the same hate from secession quarters, is fast gaining the ascendancy. Our country is dead. G.o.d only can resuscitate it from its tomb. I see no hope of union. We are two countries, and, what is most deplorable, two hostile countries. Oh! how the nations, with England at their head, crow over us.

It is the hour of her triumph; she has conquered by her arts that which she failed to do by her arms. If there was a corner of the world where I could hide myself, and I could consult the welfare of my family, I would sacrifice all my interests here and go at once. May G.o.d save us with his salvation. I have no heart to write or to do anything. Without a country!

Without a country!"

He went even further, in one respect, in a letter to Mr. Walker, of Utica, of October 27, but his ordinarily keen prophetic vision was at fault: "Have you made up your mind to be under a future monarch, English or French, or some scion of a European stock of kings? I shall not live to see it, I hope, but you may and your children will. I leave you this prophecy in black and white."

In spite of his occasional fits of pessimism he still strove with all his might, by letters and published pamphlets, to rescue his beloved country from what he believed were the machinations of foreign enemies. At the same time he did not neglect his more immediate concerns, and his letter-books are filled with loving admonitions to his children, instructions to his farmer, answers to inventors seeking his advice, or to those asking for money for various causes, etc.

He and his two brothers had united in causing a monument to be erected to the memory of their father and mother in the cemetery at New Haven, and he insisted on bearing the lion's share of the expense, as we learn from a letter written to his nephew, Sidney E. Morse, Jr., on October 10, 1862:--

"Above you have my check on Broadway Bank, New York, for five hundred dollars towards Mr. Ritter's bill.

"Tell your dear father and Uncle Sidney that this is the portion of the bill for the monument which I choose to a.s.sume. Tell them I have still a good memory of past years, when I was poor and received from them the kind attentions of affectionate brothers. I am now, through the loving kindness and bounty of our Heavenly Father, in such circ.u.mstances that I can afford this small testimonial to their former fraternal kindness, and I know no better occasion to manifest the long pent-up feelings of my heart towards them than by lightening, under the embarra.s.sments of the times, the pecuniary burden of our united testimonial to the best of fathers and mothers."

This monument, a tall column surmounted by a terrestrial globe, symbolical of the fact that the elder Morse was the first American geographer, is still to be seen in the New Haven cemetery.

Another instance of the inventor's desire to show his grat.i.tude towards those who had befriended him in his days of poverty and struggle is shown in a letter of November 17, 1862, to the widow of Alfred Vail:--

"You are aware that a sum of money was voted me by a special Congress, convened at Paris for the purpose, as a personal, honorary gratuity as the Inventor of the Telegraph.... Notwithstanding, however, that the Congress had put the sum voted me on the ground of a personal, honorary gratuity, I made up my mind in the very outset that I would divide to your good husband just that proportion of what I might receive (after due allowance and deduction of my heavy expenses in carrying through the transaction) as would have been his if the money so voted by the Congress had been the purchase money of patent rights. This design I early intimated to Mr. Vail, and I am happy in having already fulfilled in part my promise to him, when I had received the gratuity only in part. It was only the last spring that the whole sum, promised in four annual instalments (after the various deductions in Europe) has been remitted to me.... I wrote to Mr. Cobb [one of Alfred Vail's executors] some months ago, while he was in Was.h.i.+ngton, requesting an early interview to pay over the balance for you, but have never received an answer.... Could you not come to town this week, either with or without Mr. Cobb, as is most agreeable to you, prepared to settle this matter in full? If so, please drop me a line stating the day and hour you will come, and I will make it a point to be at home at the time."

In this connection I shall quote from a letter to Mr. George Vail, written much earlier in the year, on May 19:--

"It will give me much pleasure to aid you in your project of disposing of the _'original wire'_ of the Telegraph, and if my certificate to its genuineness will be of service, you shall cheerfully have it. I am not at this moment aware that there is any quant.i.ty of this wire anywhere else, except it may be in the helices of the big magnets which I have at Poughkeepsie. These shall not interfere with your design.

"I make only one modification of your proposal, and that is, if any profits are realized, please subst.i.tute for my name the name of your brother Alfred's amiable widow."

Although the malign animosity of F.O.J. Smith followed him to his grave, and even afterwards, he was, in this year of 1862, relieved from one source of annoyance from him, as we learn from a letter of May 19 to Mr.

Kendall: "I have had a settlement with Smith in full on the award of the Referees in regard to the 'Honorary Gratuity,' and with less difficulty than I expected."

Morse had now pa.s.sed the Scriptural age allotted to man; he was seventy-one years old, and, in a letter of August 22, he remarks rather sorrowfully: "I feel that I am no longer young, that my career, whether for good or evil, is near its end, but I wish to give the energy and influence that remain to me to my country, to save it, if possible, to those who come after me."

All through the year 1863 he labored to this end, with alternations of hope and despair. On February 9, 1863, he writes to his cousin, Judge Sidney Breese: "A movement is commenced in the formation of a society here which promises good. It is for the purpose of Diffusing Useful Political Knowledge. It is backed up by millionaires, so far as funds go, who have a.s.sured us that funds shall not be wanting for this object. They have made me its president."

Through the agency of this society he worked to bring about "Peace with Honor," but, as one of their cardinal principles was the abandonment of abolitionism, he worked in vain. He bitterly denounced the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation, and President Lincoln came in for many hard words from his pen, being considered by him weak and vacillating. Mistaken though I think his att.i.tude was in this, his opinions were shared by many prominent men of the day, and we must admit that for those who believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible there was much excuse. For instance, in a letter of September 21, 1863, to Martin Hauser, Esq., of Newbern, Indiana, he goes rather deeply into the subject:--

"Your letter of the 23d of last month I have just received, and I was gratified to see the evidences of an upright, honest dependence upon the only standard of right to which man can appeal pervading your whole letter. There is no other standard than the Bible, but our translation, though so excellent, is defective sometimes in giving the true meaning of the original languages in which the two Testaments are written; the Old Testament in Hebrew, the New Testament in Greek. Therefore it is that in words in the English translation about which there is a variety of opinion, it is necessary to examine the original Hebrew or Greek to know what was the meaning attached to these words by the writers of the original Bible.... I make these observations to introduce a remark of yours that the Bible does not contain anything like slavery in it because the words 'slave' and 'slavery' are not used in it (except the former twice) but that the word 'servant' is used.

"Now the words translated 'servant' in hundreds of instances are, in the original, 'slave,' and the very pa.s.sage you quote, Noah's words--'Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren'--in the original Hebrew means exactly this--'Cursed be Canaan, a _slave_ of _slaves_ shall he be.' The Hebrew, word is _'ebed'_ which means a bond slave, and the words _'ebed ebadim'_ translated 'slave of slaves,' means strictly _the most abject of slaves_.

"In the New Testament too the word translated 'servant' from the Greek is _'doulas,'_ which is the same as _'ebed'_ in the Hebrew, and always means a bond slave. Our word 'servant' formerly meant the same, but time and custom have changed its meaning with us, but the Bible word _'doulos'_ remains the same, 'a slave.'"

It seems strange that a man of such a gentle, kindly disposition should have upheld the outworn inst.i.tution of slavery, but he honestly believed, not only that it was ordained of G.o.d, but that it was calculated to benefit the enslaved race. To Professor Christy, of Cincinnati, he gives, on September 12, his reasons for this belief:--

"You have exposed in a masterly manner the fallacies of Abolitionism.

There is a complete coincidence of views between us. My 'Argument,' which is nearly ready for the press, supports the same view of the necessity of slavery to the christianization and civilization of a barbarous race. My argument for the benevolence of the relation of master and slave, drawn from the four relations ordained of G.o.d for the organization of the social system (the fourth being the servile relation, or the relation of master and slave) leads conclusively to the recognition of some great benevolent design in its establishment.

"But you have demonstrated in an unanswerable manner by your statistics this benevolent design, bringing out clearly, from the workings of his Providence, the absolute necessity of this relation in accomplis.h.i.+ng his gracious designs towards even the lowest type of humanity."

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII