A short time after this the election was held, and this enthusiastic advocate of what he considered the right learned the bitter lesson that crowds, and shouting, and surface enthusiasm do not carry an election. The voice of that Sovereign to whom he had sworn loyalty spoke in no uncertain tones, and Lincoln was overwhelmingly chosen by the votes of the People.
Morse was outvoted but not convinced, and I shall make but one quotation from a letter of November 9, to his brother Richard, who had also remained firm in spite of his brother's pleading: "My consolation is in looking up, and I pray you may be so enlightened that you may be delivered from the delusions which have ensnared you, and from the judgments which I cannot but feel are in store for this section of the country. When I can believe that my Bible reads 'cursed' instead of 'blessed' are the 'peacemakers,' I also shall cease to be a peace man. But while they remain, as they do, in the category of those that are blessed, I cannot be frightened at the names of 'copperhead' and 'traitor' so lavishly bestowed, with threats of hanging etc., by those whom you have assisted into power."
In a letter of Mr. George Wood's, of June 26, 1865, I find the following sentences: "I have to acknowledge your very carefully written letter on the divine origin of Slavery…. I hope you have kept a copy of this letter, for the time will come when you will have a biography written, and the defense you have made of your position, taken in your pamphlet, is unquestionably far better than he (your biographer) will make for you."
The letter to which Mr. Wood refers was begun on March 5, 1865, but finished some time afterwards. It is very long, too long to be included here, but in justice to myself, that future biographer, I wish to state that I have already given the main arguments brought forward in that letter, in quotations from previous letters, and that I have attempted no defense further than to emphasize the fact that, right or wrong, Morse was intensely sincere, and that he had the courage of his opinions.
Returning to an earlier date, and turning from matters political to the gentler arts of peace, we find that the one-time artist had always hoped that some day he could resume his brush, which the labors incident to the invention of the telegraph had compelled him to drop. But it seems that his hand, through long disuse, had lost its cunning. He bewails the fact in a letter of January 20, 1864, to N. Jocelyn, Esq.:—
"I have many yearnings towards painting and sculpture, but that rigid faculty called reason, so opposed often to imagination, reads me a lecture to which I am compelled to bow. To explain: I made the attempt to draw a short time ago; everything in the drawing seemed properly proportioned, but, upon putting it in another light, I perceived that every perpendicular line was awry. In other words I found that I could place no confidence in my eyes.
"No, I have made the sacrifice of my profession to establish an invention which is doing mankind a great service. I pursued it long enough to found an institution which, I trust, is to flourish long after I am gone, and be the means of educating a noble class of men in Art, to be an honor and praise to our beloved country when peace shall once more bless us throughout all our borders in one grand brotherhood of States."
The many letters to his children are models of patient exhortation and cheerful optimism, when sometimes the temptation to indulge in pessimism was strong. I shall give, as an example, one written on May 9, 1864, to two of his sons who had returned to school at Newport:—
"Now we hope to have good reports of your progress in your studies. In spring, you know, the farmers sow their seed which is to give them their harvest at the close of the summer. If they were not careful to put the seed in the ground, thinking it would do just as well about August or September, or if they put in very little seed, you can see that they cannot expect to reap a good or abundant crop.
"Now it is just so in regard to your life. You are in the springtime of life. It is seed time. You must sow now or you will reap nothing by-and-by, or, if anything, only weeds. Your teachers are giving you the seed in your various studies. You cannot at present understand the use of them, but you must take them on trust; you must believe that your parents and teachers have had experience, and they know what will be for your good hereafter, what studies will be most useful to you in after life. Therefore buckle down to your studies diligently and very soon you will get to love your studies, and then it will be a pleasure and not a task to learn your lessons.