Morris attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1835 and commenced practice in Warsaw, Illinois, in 1836.

He was appointed commissioner for the Union Pacific Railroad by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1869.

Morris died in Quincy, Illinois on October 29, 1879, and was interred in Woodland Cemetery.

[1] This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress