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8th President of the Confederate States | |
| Predecessor | Augustus Hill Garland |
| Successor | Benjamin Tillman |
| Vice President | John W. Daniel |
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5th Vice President of the Confederate States | |
| Predecessor | G.T. Beauregard |
| Successor | John W. Daniel |
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C.S. Senator from Alabama | |
| Predecessor | George Goldthwaite |
| Successor | John H. Bankhead |
| Born | June 20, 1824 Athens, Tennessee, US |
| Died | June 11, 1907 (aged 82) Selma, Alabama, CS |
| Political Party | Democratic (until 1860), Confederate (1882-1907) |
John Tyler Morgan (June 20, 1824 – June 11, 1907) was a Confederate politician who served as the 8th President of the Confederate States. Initially a very popular president, Morgan ended his term with a negative reputation and is controversial to this day.
Early Life[]
Southern War of Independence[]
Morgan served as a Brigadier General in the Southern War of Independence. He mostly fought in the Western Theater of the war. While he was not recognized as one of the great military minds or celebrity generals of the war, he did his job capably and used his limited military fame to kickstart his political career.
Postbellum Career[]
Morgan resumed practicing law in Selma after the war and was elected to the Confederate Senate in 1876. He was opposed to President Jackson's visit to the United States later that year, but did not take the opportunity to join the Southern Party as many other congressmen did. While he agreed with some of the tenets of the Southern Party, such as their extreme support of slavery, he did not like how they sought to decrease the size of the military. He felt personally offended when the members of the Southern Party attacked the legacy of Jefferson Davis and fellow Independence War generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
With these supposed slights in mind, Morgan held out on joining a party for most of his time in Congress. His opposition to the Southern Party eventually led to him becoming friendly with many Confederate Party politicians, and in 1882 he was finally convinced to join their party. Being a strong proponent of expansionism and a powerful military, the Confederate Party support of maintaining a strong standing army and navy greatly appealed to him.
Morgan quickly rose in the party ranks and soon became part of the party's inner circle of decision makers, a circle that was led by future president Augustus Hill Garland. Morgan's unique position as a Confederate Party senator from a Deep South state led to him being nominated as Garland's running mate in the 1885 election. The pair won a slim victory, and Morgan took office as Vice President.
Garland's presidency saw a time of prosperity for the Confederacy, as well as an unprecedented military build-up. As far as vice presidents go, Morgan held a good deal of power in the administration, often consulting with the president on a range of issues. As the military became stronger than ever before, Morgan began to get an itch for offensive wars to expand the Confederacy's territory. Garland was opposed to this, as he saw war as nothing but a destructive instrument that should be used as a last resort. His build-up of the military was intended to foster peace by dissuading other nations from attacking the CS. Morgan did not push the issue any further, content to wait until he was president himself to further his expansionist goals.
Garland became a very popular president as time went on, and naturally Morgan became popular as well. He was unanimously nominated for president in 1891 and won an easy victory in the general election.
Presidency[]
Morgan entered office perhaps at the height of his popularity, coming in off of a momentous election win and a successful six years as vice president. His term started off eventfully as he got into a war of words with the President of the United States, John G. Carlisle. The two men hurled insults at each other and each other's country, leading to an increased hostility among the people and calls for war with the US. Morgan had never counted a war with the United States among his goals for expansion, but he feared being seen as weak if he just ignored the insults. He decided that a war could work out, especially with the recent expansion of the Confederate military, and could let the CS claim more territory in the West and along the border.
Right before the 1892 US election, President Morgan called for an official declaration of war. This failed to pass in Congress by only a few votes and possibly indirectly swayed the election in William McKinley's favor. With Carlisle leaving office, the tensions died down and war was averted.
Morgan was now able to turn his attention to his true goal, that being the acquisition of colonial subjects in the Caribbean, Pacific, and Central America. Using the Cuban War of Independence as justification, President Morgan and the Confederacy declared war on Spain in 1895. The Spanish-Confederate War lasted six months and ended with a total Confederate victory, allowing the Confederacy to seize the territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
With Morgan's initial colonial goals being realized, the president immediately began to focus on his other expansion goals. Morgan had plans to establish total Confederate hegemony around the Gulf of Mexico, which included the total annexation of Mexico, the acquisition of Panama, and wars with the UK and France to take their remaining colonial possessions in the Americas.
About one month before President Morgan planned to begin the Second Mexican-Confederate War, the United Kingdom announced a blanket embargo against all remaining slave-holding nations on the planet. France soon joined in on this effort, as did Spain in an attempt to get revenge after the recent war. The lack of trade with these powerful nations led to a total collapse of the Confederate economy, although a collapse may have been coming eventually regardless of any embargo. Morgan kept his invasion plan in place for the next three weeks, but as time went on it became clear that the nation could no longer support a war. The war was called off, but Morgan kept his armies ready for conflict. He now wanted to go to war with the European powers to force them to end the embargo. This plan also failed as his advisers and members of his party in Congress advised him that he would have no popular support for such a war.
By the beginning of 1897, Morgan had to disband most of the army and send the soldiers home, as the Confederate government could no longer afford to pay their wages. The economic crisis spiraled further out of control, as none of the measures passed by Congress made an impact. Morgan made little effort to halt the crisis, either, instead content to let Congress figure it out so he could resume his wars. This lack of action made the problem even worse.
Morgan's previously high popularity plummeted in the midst of the panic, and soon the president even became hated among the common populace. His lack of action was interpreted as a lack of care for his people. The 1897 presidential election saw Morgan's vice president John W. Daniel be nominated as the Confederate candidate for president. He ended up coming in second place in a three-man race, losing to Southern Party candidate Benjamin Tillman. Tillman refused to host Morgan at his inauguration, and so the president ended his term by setting off to his Alabama home.
Post-Presidency[]
Morgan decided to take a year of rest before restarting his law practice, and in this time he began to truly understand the struggle that the Confederate people were going through. He came to regret how little he had done to try to mitigate the crisis, and understood why he had come to be hated by so many. Morgan began to perform acts of charity out of his own pocket in order to repair his image and make himself feel less guilty, but soon even he began to feel the effects of the economic crash. He was forced to return to the law business sooner than he anticipated as he saw his funds rapidly falling through.
Morgan would practice law for the rest of his life, as his late term unpopularity made a return to politics impossible. He was strongly opposed to the presidency of Thomas E. Watson and hated many of his so-called radical policies. He planned to campaign ferociously against the Progressives in the 1909 presidential election, but he died two years prior to the election in his home in Selma. The economic crisis finally began to heal in the following years, but Morgan did live to see the early stages of the recovery.
Legacy[]
Had the embargo not happened, John Tyler Morgan would probably be seen much differently than he is today. He might be seen as a mighty conqueror who managed to establish a great Confederate Empire around the Gulf of Mexico and complete the dream of the Golden Circle. Alas, things did not go as he had hoped, and he left office as hated as any other president in CS history. He is generally ranked in the bottom half of CS presidents, as even his expansionist accomplishments were mostly lost in the wake of the economic downturn. He is at least regarded more highly than his successor Benjamin Tillman, who did nothing but make the crisis even worse.
Thus, John Tyler Morgan carries a complex legacy to this day. Some focus on the early part of his presidency, hailing him as a great Confederate who wanted to see the emergence of a great world power in the South. Others focus on his domestic ineptitude, framing him as the man who at least partially caused the economic collapse and the troubles of the 20th Century. Whatever view is taken, Morgan is universally seen as a pivotal president in CS history, and one that history will certainly never forget.
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