March 7, 1834.

MY DEAR SIR,—­I perceive that the Library Committee have before them the consideration of a resolution on the expediency of employing four artists to paint the remaining four pictures in the Rotunda of the Capitol.  If Congress should pass a resolution in favor of the measure, I should esteem it a great honor to be selected as one of the artists.

I have devoted twenty years of my life, of which seven were passed in England, France, and Italy, studying with special reference to the execution of works of the kind proposed, and I must refer to my professional life and character in proof of my ability to do honor to the commission and to the country.

May I take the liberty to ask for myself your favorable recommendation to those in Congress who have the disposal of the commissions?

With great respect, Sir,
Your most obedient servant,
S.F.B.  MORSE.

While this letter was written in 1834, the final decision of the committee was not made until 1837, but I shall anticipate a little and give the result which had such a momentous effect on Morse’s career.  There was every reason to believe that his request would be granted, and he and his friends, many of whom endorsed by letter his candidacy, had no fear as to the result; but here again Fate intervened and ordered differently.

Among the committee men in Congress to whom this matter was referred was John Quincy Adams, ex-President of the United States.  In discussing the subject, Mr. Adams submitted a resolution opening the competition to foreign artists as well as to American, giving it as his opinion that there were no artists in this country of sufficient talent properly to execute such monumental works.  The artists and their friends were, naturally, greatly incensed at this slur cast upon them, and an indignant and remarkably able reply appeared anonymously in the New York “Evening Post.”  The authorship of this article was at once saddled on Morse, who was known to wield a facile and fearless pen.  Mr. Adams took great offense, and, as a result, Morse’s name was rejected and his great opportunity passed him by.  There can be no reasonable doubt that, had he received this commission, he would have deferred the perfecting of his telegraphic device until others had so far distanced him in the race that he could never have overtaken them.

Instead of his having been the author of the “Evening Post” article, it transpired that he had not even heard of Mr. Adams’s resolution until his friend Fenimore Cooper, the real author of the answer, told him of both attack and reply.