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HORACE MORRIS1Horace Morris (1832–97) was born free to parents, Shelton Morris and Evalina Spradling, in Louisville, Kentucky. Both the Morris and Spradling families were integral to the formation of Louisville’s free black community and active in the regional Underground Railroad. Shelton Morris moved to Ohio following the death of his wife and accusations that he illegally voted in the 1840 presidential election in Kentucky. Horace grew to adulthood in Ohio and returned to Louisville in 1851 with his wife, Wilhelmina Chancellor (also referred to as Willieann in historical records). Morris became heavily involved in civic reform, Republican politics, and the local A.M.E. church while in Louisville. Throughout his life, Morris held a number of prominent positions. He was appointed head cashier at the Louisville branch of the Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Bank in December 1868, the first African American to hold the position. Under his direction, the Louisville branch saw significant growth, reaching upward of $3 million in deposits. Morris served in this role until the federal government closed the bank. In 1881, Morris was the only African American to receive an invitation to Washington, D.C., to assist in the resolution of the Freedmen’s Bank’s accounts. During the 1870s, Morris turned his efforts to public education reform in Louisville. As secretary of the Colored Board of Visitors, he fought for the establishment of and monitored Louisville’s African American public elementary and high schools. Morris also assisted in the formation of the Colored Orphan’s Home in 1878. Morris was appointed the first African American steward of Louisville’s U.S. Marine Hospital in 1876. Like Douglass, Morris had an interest in newspaper publishing, although he did not achieve the same success. His first newspaper, the Kentuckian, launched in the early 1870s but was published for only several months. Morris’s second newspaper, the Champion, was also short-lived. William H. Gibson, Historical Sketch of the Progress of the Colored Race in Louisville, Ky. (Louisville, 1897), 65; Henry Clay Weeden, Weeden’s History of the Colored People of Louisville (Louisville, 1897), 18; Marion Brunson Lucas, A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to Segregation, 1760–1891 (Frankfort, Ky., 1992), 68, 246, 282–84; J. Blaine Hudson, Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad in the Kentucky Borderland (Jefferson, N.C., 2002), 139–41; Mervin Aubespin, Kenneth Clay, and J. Blaine Hudson, Two Centuries of Black Louisville: A Photographic History (Louisville, Ky., 2011), 53–55, 78-79. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS
Louisville, Ky. 18 March 1877[.]
OFFICE OF SURGEON-IN-CHARGE,
POST OF LOUISVILLE KY, HON FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
DEAR SIR;
I see by the morning’s papers that the Senate has confirmed your appointment as Marshall of the District of Colombia.2The U.S. Senate’s executive session for confirming the nomination of Douglass to the position of U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia was held on 15–17 March 1877. The nomination was considered in debate on the final day, but the speeches were not recorded. Douglass later contended that Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York had been his strongest advocate for confirmation. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 3: 329; Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, 147 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1828), 20: 67–68, 71. I congratulate you and the colored people whose representative you are, on this favorable esteem. There is more in it than simply the appointment of Frederick Douglass. It is a full recognition by the Administration of the citizenship of the Colored American. I am truly glad that the choice has fallen on you, for of all men I regard you as the best representative of our people in this country. A slave, a fugitive, a freedman and a citizen! you represent all the different phases of the negro in American history. Hanging in my parlor side by side, are pictures of Charles Sumner and Frederick Douglass; the first, the best representative of the white American the second, the best representative of the Colored American, Tomorrow I intend to put a laurel wreath around the latter, for it is a great triumph for the cause.
When I read the news in the mornings paper, I drew my little fellows up in line, (I have five (5) of them) and gave three cheers for Frederick Douglass, and then for President Hayes.
Remember me respectfully to your sons, Fred, and Charlie,3Frederick Douglass, Jr., and Charles R. Douglass. if he has returned.4Charles R. Douglass was appointed consul in Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo, in July 1875 and remained in that post until he resigned on 12 October 1877. Bernier and Taylor, If I Survive, 37.
Hoping you all manner of success, I am
Very respectfully
HORACE MORRIS
