Essay 14-B: The Morrill Act Is Passed In 1862 And Justin S. Morrill

Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner

In Justin Smith Morrill, historian Coy Cross ends his biography with a simple truth: “If Justin Morrill had done nothing else, the Land-Grant College Act would have assured his place in history.”

With at least one land-grant institution in every state in the U.S. today, Morrill’s lasting legislative legacy launched educational opportunities for millions of students and invaluably advanced American agricultural and technical knowledge and leadership for over a century and a half. As the hero of this national deed, Justin Morrill exemplifies a distinctive virtue necessary for a thriving republic: sacrificial service aimed at creating opportunities for others. 

Like Alexander Hamilton a few short generations before him, Justin Morrill had a natural affinity toward accounting and financial planning. His early business and commercial financial successes in New England could have led him to use his considerable talents and energy for a lifetime of private gain and personal philanthropy in his home state of Vermont. Instead, he chose a lifetime of public service, first serving in 1854 in the U.S. House of Representatives at age 44 for six terms, followed by 32 years as a U.S. senator until his death in 1898.

While the Land-Grant Act bears his name, he was better known in Congress for his work managing the challenging financial situation of the United States in the 1850s through tariff policies designed to build and protect American industry against a European-dominated economy. The economic situation only worsened as the Civil War came. Although his work as chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee was important and exhausting, Morrill saw even deeper stakes for the prosperity of the republic. He recognized that America was not a giant machine, but rather a nation of equal citizens whose ingenuity and affinity toward hard work could outshine all of Europe. Such a goal, however, required an abundance of available and affordable education—especially education that elevated the reputation for the agricultural and mechanical arts, establishing a long line of respected Americans entering these indispensable vocations as practitioners, researchers, and teachers. 

Morrill risked his reputation but got his land-grant bill passed in 1862 after a five-year fight. On April 20, 1858, Morrill had invoked public sentiment that demanded higher education not only for those entering the life of law and letters but also for the future leaders in the fields of agriculture and engineering. Morrill viewed this as an absolute practical necessity, but the land-grant colleges would also be dignified in their own right as first-class institutions. Morrill simply argued, “Young Americans should have some chance to study agriculture as a profession and be attracted to it as a learned, liberal, and intellectual pursuit.” By no means would this education be solely technical training. It was also an entryway to a life of reading great texts and strategic thinking, just as Morrill had personally pursued his whole life. He had given the land-grant colleges a noble founding prior to the Emancipation Proclamation. His second act in 1890 was an extension of this same nobility to those citizens of all races whom these institutions, including the historically black colleges and universities, now serve. 

Morrill worked for nearly thirty more years establishing and securing grants for colleges across the U.S. During this time, he corresponded with luminaries like Frederick Douglass, who called upon him to lead the charge to expand education for everyone regardless of color or creed. Morrill gladly picked up the mantle. Originally, his new 1890 Morrill Act simply denied funds for “maintenance of a college where a distinction of race or color is made in the admission of students.” However, the bill was politically untenable without a concession for the establishment of equally funded separate colleges for white and Black students. When faced with the choice of a political compromise that allowed southern segregated land-grant colleges or losing out altogether on educational access for freedmen and their descendants, Morrill chose the former. For a statesman who came into his political career as part of the new Republican Party, he worked closely with Abraham Lincoln and stood for free soil and free labor his entire political career. Morrill recognized that education would ultimately bring together a country where the citizens—all citizens—would one day share in self-rule. 

On the hundredth anniversary of the Land-Grant Act, poet laureate Robert Frost declared, “For me there is no greater name in American education than that of Senator Justin Smith Morrill.” As a dedicated public servant who fought tirelessly to change the entire American concept of who should be considered “college-bound,” Morrill’s heroism and virtue emerge from his selflessness and personal devotion to the good of others. He undertook the daunting project that now rightly ranks among the greatest legislative accomplishments of the 19th century. 

Matthew Van Hook received his doctoral degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame with a focus on political theory, constitutional studies and American political thought. He also holds a master’s degree in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Prior to joining the Torrey Honors College faculty, Van Hook served on active duty as an Air Force pilot and political science professor at his alma mater, the US Air Force Academy. His research and published work ranges from the statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln to politics and law in the novels of Harper Lee. 

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