John Tyler Morgan John Tyler Morgan ( June 20 , 1824 – June 11 , 1907 ) was a general in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War , and a six - term U . S . senator from the state of Alabama after the war . He was a strong supporter of states rights and racial segregation through the Reconstruction era . He was an expansionist , arguing for the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii and for U . S . construction of an interoceanic canal in Central America . Early life and career . Morgan was born in Athens , Tennessee into a family of Welsh origin whose ancestor James B . Morgan ( 1607 – 1704 ) settled in the Connecticut Colony . John T . Morgan was initially educated by his mother . In 1833 , he moved with his parents to Calhoun County , Alabama , where he attended frontier schools and then studied law in Tuskegee with justice William Parish Chilton , his brother - in - law . After admission to the bar he established a practice in Talledega . Ten years later , Morgan moved to Dallas County and resumed the practice of law in Selma and Cahaba . Turning to politics , Morgan became a presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1860 , and supported John C . Breckinridge . He was delegate from Dallas County to the State Convention of 1861 , which passed the ordinance of secession . Civil War . With Alabama ' s vote to leave the Union , at the age of 37 Morgan enlisted as a private in the Cahaba Rifles , which volunteered its services in the Confederate Army and was assigned to the 5th Alabama Infantry . He first saw action at the First Battle of Manassas in the summer of 1861 . Morgan rose to major and then lieutenant colonel , serving under Col . Robert E . Rodes , a future Confederate general . Morgan resigned in 1862 and returned to Alabama , where in August he recruited a new regiment , the 51st Alabama Partisan Rangers , becoming its colonel . He led it at the Battle of Murfreesborough , operating in cooperation with the cavalry of Nathan Bedford Forrest . When Rodes was promoted to major general and given a division in the Army of Northern Virginia , Morgan declined an offer to command Rodes ' s old brigade and instead remained in the Western Theater , leading troops at the Battle of Chickamauga . On November 16 , 1863 , he was appointed as a brigadier general of cavalry and participated in the Knoxville Campaign . His brigade consisted of the 1st , 3rd , 4th ( Russell ' s ) , 9th , and 51st Alabama Cavalry regiments . His men were routed and dispersed by Federal cavalry on January 27 , 1864 . He was reassigned to a new command and fought in the Atlanta Campaign . Subsequently , his men harassed William T . Sherman ' s troops during the March to the Sea . Later , he was assigned to administrative duty in Demopolis , Alabama . When the Confederacy collapsed and the war ended , Morgan was trying to organize Alabama black troops for home defense . Postbellum career . After the war , Morgan resumed the practicing of law in Selma , Alabama . He was once again presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1876 and was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in that year , being re - elected in 1882 , 1888 , 1894 , 1900 , and 1906 , and serving from March 4 , 1877 , until his death . For much of his tenure , he served as Senator alongside a fellow former Confederate general , Edmund W . Pettus . Morgan advocated for separating blacks and whites in the U . S . by encouraging the migration of black people out of the U . S . south . Hochschild wrote , " at various times in his long career Morgan also advocated sending them [ negroes ] to Hawaii , to Cuba , and to the Philippines - which , perhaps because the islands were so far away , he claimed were a " native home of the negro . " He introduced and fought for numerous legislative bills in support of legal lynching . Morgan also staunchly worked for the repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment to the U . S . Constitution that was intended to prevent the denial of voting rights based on race . He was chairman of Committee on Rules ( Forty - sixth Congress ) , the Committee on Foreign Relations ( Fifty - third Congress ) , the Committee on Interoceanic Canals ( Fifty - sixth and Fifty - seventh Congresses ) , and the Committee on Public Health and National Quarantine ( Fifty - ninth Congress ) . In 1894 , Morgan chaired an investigation , known as the Morgan Report into the Hawaiian Revolution which concluded that the U . S . had remained completely neutral in the matter . He authored the introduction to the Morgan Report based on the findings of the investigative committee . He was a strong supporter of the annexation of Hawaii and visited Hawaii in 1897 in support of annexation . He believed that the history of the U . S . clearly indicated it was unnecessary to hold a plebiscite in Hawaii as a condition for annexation . He was appointed by President William McKinley in July 1898 to the commission created by the Newlands Resolution to establish government in the Territory of Hawaii . A strong advocate for a Central American canal , Morgan was also a staunch supporter of the Cuban revolutionaries in the 1890s . The most recent study of Morgan by Joseph A . Fry suggests an alternate reason for Morgan ' s desires for American expansionism in the 1890s . Morgan may have figured that the expanded territories in Latin American would center their economic development in the Southern states , not the Northern ones , and this would undo the economic dominion of the North due to its victory of 1865 . As it turned out the expansion in the wake of the Spanish American War did not lead to creating a southern United States economic domination . Death and legacy . Senator Morgan died in Washington , D . C . while still in office . He was buried in Live Oak Cemetery in Selma , Alabama . The remainder of his term was served by John H . Bankhead . An article by history professor Thomas Adams Upchurch in the April 2004 " Alabama Review " says : In 1908 , the Congressman from Alabama , Mr . Heflin , in describing both recently deceased Senators Edmund Pettus and John Tyler Morgan said the following , “ the ballot , that which represented privileges and powers for which the quick - witted Celt and the thoughtful Saxon had struggled a thousand years to achieve , was given in the twinkling of an eye to the unfit hordes of an inferior race . . . . No two men in Alabama , or in the South , did more to stay the hideous tide of negro domination than the two dearly beloved Senators whose death the House mourns to - day . In the dark and trying days of reconstruction these two men were foremost among the defenders of Anglo - Saxon civilization . ” See : " John Tyler Morgan and Edmund Winston Pettus - Memorial Addresses - Sixtieth Congress , First Session , Senate of the United States , April 18 , 1908 . House of Representatives , April 25 , 1908 , " ed . United States Congress ( Washington : Government Printing Office , 1909 ) . 188 - 189 . Notable quotes . " The snows will fall from heaven in sooty blackness , sooner than the white women of the United States will consent to the maternity of negro families . " " It has become the solemn necessity on our part to protect the Caucasian race on this continent against the intrusion of Oriental people . "