Representative Elijah Adams Morse, of Massachusetts, quoted in the Alexandria Gazette, May 31, 1890.
‘Let my right hand forget its cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth when I make patriots and traitors equal, or when I fail to discern between the loyal soldiers who periled and laid down their lives in the defense of their country and the traitors who fought to destroy it.”
Born in South Bend, St. Joseph County, Indiana, Morse moved to Massachusetts with his parents, who settled in Boston in 1852. He attended the public schools, the Boylston School in Boston, and Onondaga Academy, New York. Enlisted in the Union Army in the Fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, during the Civil War. He served three months under General Butler in Virginia and one year under General Banks in Louisiana. He was promoted to corporal. Manufacturer of stove polish in Canton, Massachusetts. He served as member of the State house of representatives in 1876. He was an unsuccessful Prohibition Party candidate for lieutenant governor in 1877. He served in the state senate in 1886 and 1887. He served as member of the Governor’s council in 1888.
Morse was elected as a Republican to the Fifty-first and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1889 – March 3, 1897). He served as chairman of the Committee on Alcohol Liquor Traffic (Fifty-fourth Congress). He was not a candidate for renomination in 1896. He resumed manufacturing activities. He died in Canton, Massachusetts, June 5, 1898. He was interred in Canton Cemetery.