Julius Sterling Morton
| Julius Sterling Morton | |
|---|---|
 |
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| 3rd United States Secretary of Agriculture | |
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In office March 7, 1893 – March 5, 1897 |
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| President |
Grover Cleveland William McKinley |
| Preceded by | Jeremiah M. Rusk |
| Succeeded by | James Wilson |
| Acting Governor of Nebraska | |
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In office December 5, 1858 – May 2, 1859 |
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| Preceded by | William Alexander Richardson |
| Succeeded by | Samuel W. Black |
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In office February 24, 1861 – March 6, 1861 |
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| Preceded by | Samuel W. Black |
| Succeeded by | Algernon Paddock |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
April 22, 1832 Adams, New York, U.S. |
| Died | April 27, 1902 (aged 70) Lake Forest, Illinois, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
Julius Sterling Morton (April 22, 1832 – April 27, 1902) was a Nebraska newspaper editor who served as President Grover Cleveland's Secretary of Agriculture. He was a prominent Bourbon Democrat, taking the conservative position on political, economic and social issues, and opposing agrarianism. Among his most notable achievements was the founding of Arbor Day in 1872. In 1897 he started a weekly magazine entitled The Conservative.
Morton was born on April 22, 1832, in the town of Adams in Jefferson County, New York; his parents, Julius Dewey Morton and Emeline Sterling Morton, ran a general store. In 1834, his parents and his grandfather, Abner Morton, moved to Monroe, Michigan, south of Detroit on Lake Erie; there, Morton's grandfather and his paternal uncle Edward Morton operated a newspaper. When he was fourteen, Morton's parents sent him to Wesleyan Seminary in Albion, Michigan, about 100 miles (160 km) northwest of Monroe.
In 1850, Morton enrolled in the University of Michigan. In his junior year he attempted to launch a new periodical, the Peninsular Quarterly and University Magazine, which proved short-lived. He was an active member of the Chi Phi fraternity, and opposed an attempt by the faculty to discourage such secret societies.
In May 1854, six weeks before Morton was due to graduate, the university's Board of Regents dismissed the head of the medical department, Dr. J. Adams Allen, a popular faculty member. That evening, Morton, a friend and admirer of Allen's, addressed a mass meeting protesting Allen's dismissal and other seemingly autocratic actions taken by university officials. On the following day, Morton was expelled from the university, ostensibly for excessive absences and for general inattention to his duties as a student. His expulsion prompted protests from the student body and across the state. He was readmitted after signing a very conditional document, stating that if the charges against him had been true, then his expulsion would have been justified. The readmission did not last: the university's president, Henry Philip Tappan, released a version of his statement from which the conditionals had been removed, making it a straightforward admission of fault; Morton wrote a letter to the Detroit Free Press in which he retracted his original statement, declaring that he had not "...meanly petitioned, implored and besought the Faculty for mercy, for... the Latin-scratched integument of a dead sheep". He was re-expelled and not allowed to graduate with his class. In 1856, under unclear circumstances, he was awarded an honorary Bachelor of Arts degree by Union College of Schenectady, New York; in 1858, the University of Michigan faculty reversed his expulsion and awarded him a diploma.
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