Machine-made lines by a Member of
Congress, to his wife, December, 1860

Vast halls we here behold, with corridors

Of tessellated marble, stairs and doors

Wrought deep in bronze, and, grand o'er all, the dome Uplifted high, with base fixed on the home

Of th' capital. Here men of public fame

Appear, and some who soil their names with shame. For ev'ry orator of brilliant hue

We find an equal dunce and sometimes two.
The statesmen, men of sense, most calmly talk
And calmly vote; while others often balk
In speech, but seem to bluster when they vote,
And send to Buncombe speeches others wrote.

The daily din of measureless routine,

The dullest forms, with voices good or mean, Here mingle with minds of grander scope, Which elevate or sink the nation's hope.

The Speaker raps, then comes the chaplain's prayer, While 'gainst all rules Kenyon smokes, so does Blair. The journal's read, the reg'lar order cried

Small sums debated long, while millions slide,

The galleries indecent hiss or cheer,

And members shine when many ladies hear.

Tho' duty binds me here, my thoughts will roam
To far-off snow-clad hills, my cottage home,
Where modest porch to all a welcome gives,
Where love, of life the light, forever lives;
Tho' all outside the air to zero falls,

The blazing maple, brightly shining, calls
A dearest circle, loved and loving ones,

My house-hold gods, around the warm hearth-stones
My wife and child and heart all cluster there,
A friend or two, to help along the cheer,
Drops in, and, slicing up the village news

And pippins too, don't currant juice refuse,
Or, when alone, some book wafts th' hour along,
Till ev'ning closes with the family song.

This marks perhaps a barren, homely taste,
Place misplaced and ambition run to waste,
But homespun joys I here lament to swap

For toil to harvest fame's most meagre crop.

A week later he sounded the same note:

Secession does not abate much of its fury, and as I have said from the first the cotton States are mad enough to try the game. If it was not for the bad example, I should like to see how they would get along alone for a few years.

And on the 23d he wrote at some length to a Vermont Democrat who had besought him to compromise:

-

Your favor of the 18th inst. is at hand, and in reply I have this to say, that I shall do what I think right regardless of consequences, but I shall not surrender my manhood nor yours — for in this contest, your principles at this time and here, are as uncurrent as my own. Loving my country with my whole heart I should be glad to conciliate and preserve the Constitution and the Union. The malcontents split your party for the purpose of raising this occasion to precipitate a revolution. Still they would not succeed but for the weak, if not worse than that, old man at the helm [Buchanan] who is daily leaning on Secessionists instead of the whole country for support. Why, sir, a week ago some of your Douglas Democrats seriously considered the project of impeaching him. Still I do not believe the Union is to go down....

It is a deep laid, long-pondered plot to break up the Government. Disappointed men and the chronic disease in South Carolina are at the bottom of it. These men will be appeased only by impossible medicines. The Dred Scott decision cannot be put into the Constitution. In the days of nullification the Old Whigs sustained General Jackson, and in this crisis Democrats must reciprocate that sort of patriotism. One blast from Old Hickory's bugle at this time would be worth more than an army with ban

ners.

But I have not time to give you an idea of the inside of this quarrel.

It is readily to be inferred that Mrs. Morrill had also something of the Spartan in her blood. To a letter of hers dated December 10th, her husband replied:

We are not making great progress. You need have no fears that I shall turn my back upon my principles or forget where I

was born, who I am or who is my wife. I shall listen patiently, talk calmly, and vote as I ever have done, as I think right, and for the interest of this country.

There follow a series of letters all in the same somber tone of one who sees unavoidable disaster impending. Brief passages covering the period from Christmas to the first of March will suffice to mark the tragic course of events:

On December 26th he wrote:

The times here are big with the fate of nations and sorely try men's souls. Our Governor I see has ordered a fast. I am glad you have got away so as not to have that to endure. The Governor should pray and pick his flint, not fast.

On the 29th, in the same key:

The weather here is gloomy, and the times are gloomy. The House only meets this week once in three days to adjourn, but our Committee of 33 meets daily. I doubt about anything being done to stop total disruption of the Union so far as the slave States are concerned. They ask new guarantees for slavery. We can only give the old ones.

On January 11th the tone was equally serious:

Revolutionary events go along in dramatic order. We know not what a day may bring forth. I do not think the secession cholera will leave a single slave State untouched. Well, it may perhaps as well come now as ever.

Two days later, in evident response to a reproach for his despondency, he said:

I am as jolly as I can be, but I cannot see our Union tumbling to pieces without sorrow. If we could legally let all the slaveholders go, I don't know but I would say amen. We can chastise them, but that will not elevate their civilization to a higher plane. The conflict will never end until we are quit of them or they are quit of slavery. The severest punishment they can have in my opinion is to let them go and lock the door so they cannot get back. But we must meet the events as they arise.·

He grew angry over the weak-kneed compromisers: "The Northern Democracy," he wrote on January 18th, "in many places will leave the job of sustaining the Union and fighting traitors to the Republican Party. Caleb Cushing and Mayor Wood of New York deserve to be hung before we stretch the necks of anybody in South Carolina." By the 23d he had given up hope for the Committee of Thirty-three: "I am very well, but our whole country is sick and I do not think there is any chance for the 33 stars ever to be grouped together again."

Lincoln's journey to Washington and his measured utterances on preserving the Union only intensified the excitement:

We are now (February 13th) counting the votes for Pres. and Vice P. - both Houses assembled and the galleries crammed. It is an imposing spectacle and all is going off quietly. The speech of Lincoln on his way here, hinting at force for the recovery of U.S. forts and property, has roused the ire of members from the slave States and they will do all in their power now to prevent our passing any bills even to pay ordinary debts or for the support of Government. We have not time to spend in factious proceedings and I suppose they can do enough to render an extra session of Congress necessary.

The strain told on Morrill as on every one else. At the close of the letter just quoted he adds, "You will find me somewhat reduced in flesh: but tolerably well - no more than that." He now wrote (February 20th), "Nothing new except intense excitement" - doubtless that which attended the withdrawal of the Southern members from Congress, and he continues, "The Union is gone and we must do the best we can." With the seats of the Southerners empty, the situation was rapidly defined. On March 1st, he wrote:

We are in session at the House and have defeated all the propositions of the Peace Congress and most of those of the Committee

of Thirty-three. In fact have done nearly what I thought we ought to do. We defeated even Mr. Adams's New Mexico Enabling Act. The amendment providing that no amendment should ever authorize Congress to interfere with slavery in the States passed by two-thirds majority. I felt it to be my duty to vote for it, but no vote I ever gave has caused me so much severe thought. I know it will not be approved by all of my friends now. I shall trust to time. The events which will transpire in the course of the year will perhaps justify the vote - though I should be glad if it turns out otherwise. The real disunionists are in high-feather that no compromise has passed or is likely to pass. Let them make the most of it.

I am a grumbler, you know, and am not pleased with all the names which figure in the new Cabinet. To me they do not foreshadow an honest administration nor one very Republican. Seward is making Lincoln draw it very mild, I fear. But we must not make the worst of it. One day more and Sunday - then Inauguration. A great jam is here. Never saw so many from Vermont.

There was widespread fear that attempts would be made to prevent Lincoln's inauguration and the note of relief is evident in the fragmentary letter of March 5th to his sisterin-law, Miss Swan:

Inauguration is over-the most magnificent one we ever had - and the President's Inaugural was just what it should be and every whit made by Abraham Lincoln and no one else. It is conceded here by all to be a paper of extraordinary ability, and, handling difficult topics, one of extraordinary tact. Conciliatory but firm. We have got a Government! Republicans and Unionmen will now try and sustain it.

The early events of the war were not comforting to patriots in the North. Lack of preparation, lack of men, arms, training, equipment, and a total misapprehension of the nature and size of the conflict before them made the early efforts of the Government ineffectual. The failure to relieve Fort Sumter was a grievous disappointment. Morrill wrote from Boston on April 15th: