Justin Smith Morrill - Biography

Biography

Born in Strafford, Vermont, Morrill attended the common schools, Thetford Academy and Randolph Academy. 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.

In 1854 Morrill was elected as a Whig to the Thirty-fourth Congress and as a Republican to the five succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1855–March 4, 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. As a congressman, he served on the Joint Committee on Reconstruction which drafted the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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 Strafford Cemetery in Strafford, Vermont.