NEBRASKA CITY – Museum Coordinator Dean Shissler says the true legacy of J. Sterling Morton is seen in abundant woodlands around his famous lodgings at Nebraska City and the global conservation movement, but it won’t be the only perspective told about this Nebraska territorial governor when his imposing, 13-foot statue arrives from Washington, D.C.

J. Sterling Morton etched his part in history at a time when America’s very survival as a nation  was in doubt and his views on civil rights, Shissler says, are not in line with the sentiments of the people who live in Nebraska City today.

Shissler: “J. Sterling Morton had some views as far as that goes that are not with our modern views on equality and what’s morally right and wrong … It’s important to understand that the views he was expressing in like the Conservative -- which is the paper he published here in Nebraska City I believe from 1898 to 1902 until his death – the views he expressed in that were not solely his views. They were his views when he wrote it, but those views were shared by thousands, if not millions of Americans at the time, which demonstrates how deeply ingrained  those types of ideas were.”

Shissler said he is among the most enthusiastic supporters of bringing the statue to Nebraska City because of its 80 years in the Capitol’s statuary hall and because, he said, the time has come to broaden Morton's story.

 

 Shissler: “When we bring the statue in how do we address the questions that were brought up from the very beginning? The plan now is to, wherever we put it, use this as a learning opportunity and a teaching opportunity to say yes, this is the history, this is who this person was and address it that way.”

Shissler said the history of Civil War era Nebraska City can not be told without mention of the Underground Railroad and efforts at Mayhew Cabin to help escaping slaves reach freedom up north. The town’s story can not be told without mention of the GAR Civil War museum, where the names of Nebraskans who fought the Rebellious South are venerated.

The story of southeast Nebraska can not be told without mention of struggles against pro-slavery forces that sought to prevent statehood and breathed threats against the people from Falls City to Brownville.

But, Shissler said, Morton’s story might be well told without any of these.

Encyclopedia Britannica did just that. He is noted as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture under President Grover Cleveland and the founder of Arbor Day. Before Nebraska was a state, he was a legislator and acting governor.

There is no mention of his self-identification as an anti-war Democrat or his open opposition to President Abraham Lincoln. The encyclopedia does not add that he consistently advocated against giving black Americans the right to vote and that he appeared to have no moral objection to the idea of slavery.

Shissler said the story that soon will be told at the statue of  J. Sterling Morton is much deeper.

Shissler: “Morton was involved in the controversy over statehood, of creating Nebraska as a state, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Missouri Compromise and all that. The basis of it was the spread of slavery into new territories.”

Shissler: He did not have the same sense of equality that we have now

 

Morton supported the Crittenden Compromise, hoping to avoid the Civil War by making constitutional amendments to solidify the Missouri Compromise. It promised the permanent existence of slavery in Southern states.

The 36, 30 Parallel, which is at the Nebraska-Kansas border today, would have been drawn clear across the United States. The Missouri Compromise that originally drew that line was dissolved by the Dred Scott decision in 1857, three years after Morton arrived in Nebraska.

Shissler said although J. Sterling Morton was never in rebellion against the Union, he was counted among the rare “copperhead Republicans” who opposed President Abraham Lincoln.

Shissler: “He aligned himself during the Civil War as an anti-war Democrat. He did not believe in the cause of the Union through war. He supported the cessation cause. He never outwardly supported Southern cessationist states, but he did not agree with Lincoln on most things. The Emancipation Proclamation ... he did not agree with. He felt it overstepped boundaries, legally, as far as what the president could do.”

There are comments among locals today that Morton had slaves, but Shissler says that is not true. He said there are mentions of servants, but those were not enslaved persons.

Shissler: “In Nebraska at the time when he moved here there were not a large number of enslaved persons in Nebraska. Stephen Nuckolls, a person from here in town, would have been the most prolific slave owner at the time and I want to say it was less than 10 enslaved persons that he had at the time, but even then that the was most out of the entire state, was right here. It was something that was very prevalent here and something that we need to address.”

Morton’s pro-South views are sometimes explained as an economic desire to have trade relations with states downstream on the Missouri River and his desire to maintain a balance of power that would avoid war.

 

Shissler: “A lot of it is balance of power. That’s where a lot of those compromises over new territories are based on. The Bleeding Kansas controversy over the Kansas-Nebraska Act  that is entirely based on the fact that there were, at the time it was passed, there were 11 slaves states and 11 free states and whatever state was going to be added new would have upset the balance of power. Morton would aligned partly with that and partly because he did not have the same sense of equality that we have now.”

Shissler is not aware of Morton taking sides when Nebraska City was becoming known as an Undergound Railroad city.

Shissler: “There was quite a clash here in town. We have a history of that because we have both ends of the spectrum. We have the Kagys and we the the Mayhews here and also we had guys like Stephen Nuckolls here in town. It definitely was a contentious issue and I’m not aware that he ever chose a side or picked a side publicly at least.”

Although there is racial unrest in America today, Shissler said it’s a good time for the statue to make its way to Nebraska City and present a learning opportunity.

Shissler: “A better understanding of the views that were expressed by many, many people at that time and the culture and where we are now and where we need to go. That’s the lesson that needs to be drawn there.”