OF THOMAS MORRIS: PIONEER AND LONG A LEGISLATOR OF OHIO, AND U. S. SENATOR FROM 1833 TO 1839. EDITED BY HIS SON, B. F. MORRIS. "His memory should be kept freshly living among the lovers of liberty and progress." SALMON P. CHASE. CINCINNATI: MOORE, WILSTACH, KEYS & OVEREND. 7366-3 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern Stereotyped and Printed by CINCINNATI. PREFACE. THIS work comes before the public, with no ambitious pretensions. It is the compilation and record of the thoughts and acts of a plain and earnest man, narrated in a plain and honest style. It claims not, nor was it the aim of the Editor, to present a work of finished literary excellence; this would not have comported with him, whose thoughts occupy so large a share of these pages, nor with the taste or ability of the Editor. The simple purpose has been, to gather, and weave into a connected narrative, the memorials of the life of one, who was an active laborer in the fields of human toil and freedom, and who, in his day, and in his way, did something to augment the influences that are rising and swelling that great volume of power, which is to achieve the regeneration of humanity, and to inaugurate and establish the final and perpetual reign of freedom. Every contribution, however small, to this stream and tide of influence, is an increment added, and is essential to the combination and completion of the entire power. It is the rivulets that form the rivers and the great oceans of the earth. The work will be chiefly prized, by the friends of freedom especially, as illustrating the manly heroism of one of the early laborers in the cause of liberty; and of the value and triumph of a persistent adherence to the principles of right, justice, and Constitutional freedom. The true treasures of a State consist in its true principles, and the men who have the courage to give them practical and universal application. Principles, as abstract ideas, or symbols of theory, are intangible and fruitless; they must have, if their nature and achievements are felt, on the varied interests of the State and Society, an outward development, and a radical, universal application. Men, can be men, in all the active elements of a true manhood, only when they are the embodiments and revelators of just and eternal principles. This is their mission, and on its execution depends, their usefulness and moral dignity. The reader, if his patience will carry him through the pages of this work, will find that he, whose life and services it commemorates, was a man who had settled convictions of right and true principles; and who gave them an honest and steadfast application to his whole political life. For their defense and maintenance, he sacrificed the honors and preferments of |