The New International Encyclopædia/Morgan, John Tyler

MORGAN, John Tyler (1824—). An American politician, born at Athens, Tenn. He was educated in Alabama, whither he removed with his parents in 1833. There be studied law, and in 1845 was admitted to the bar. He early won wide repute as a lawyer and campaign speaker, and in 1861 was a delegate from Dallas County to the Alabama State Convention which passed the ordinance of secession, and in May of the same year he enlisted as a private in the Fifth Alabama Infantry, of which he ultimately became lieutenant-colonel. In 1862 he recruited the Fifty-first Alabama Regiment and became its colonel. In the next year he was promoted to be brigadier-general, and in this capacity served with considerable distinction. After the war he resumed his law practice at Selma, Ala., and again entered politics in 1876 as an elector-at-large on the Tilden ticket. In 1877 he was elected to the United States Senate, of which body he remained a member, receiving his fifth reëlection in November, 1900. For many years one of the leaders of the Democratic Party in the debates in the Upper House of Congress, he showed himself particularly interested in foreign relations, and served for some time as chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. He was a vigorous and persistent advocate of the Nicaraguan canal route in preference to the route across Panama.