Lot Myrick Morrill (May 3, 1813 – January 10, 1883) was an American politician who served as the 28th governor of Maine, as a United States senator, and as U.S. secretary of the treasury under President Ulysses S. Grant.

An advocate for hard currency rather than paper money, Morrill was popularly received as treasury secretary by the American press and Wall Street.

Morrill's Senate tenure lasted nearly 15 years, spanning from the start of the Civil War to the waning days of Reconstruction.

While in the Senate, Morrill sponsored legislation that outlawed slavery in Washington, D.C., and advocated for education and suffrage for African American freedmen.

Upon his retirement from the Treasury Department in 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Morrill as collector of customs in Portland, Maine, a position he held until his death in 1883.

[2] He was of entirely English ancestry, his earliest immigrant ancestor was Abraham Morrill, who came to America from England in 1632 as part of the Great Puritan migration.

[2] After briefly attending Waterville, Morrill served as principal of a private western New York college for a year.

Morrill served as Maine's governor until January 1861 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate to replace Hamlin, who had left his seat to become Abraham Lincoln's running mate.

In 1861, Sen. Morrill argued strongly against compromise on the principles of slavery (via constitutional amendments) in order to restore the peace.

[2] In March 1862, Morrill supported legislation that permitted the freedom of confiscated Confederate slaves captured during the War.

[2] In April 1862, Morrill spoke in favor of a bill that passed Congress; signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln that freed slaves in Washington, D.C.[2] By the end of the war, he argued against punishing the southern states for the rebellion, and in favor of higher education for people of all races.

[2] On February 1, 1866, Morrill delivered a speech in Congress, which stated: "I admit that this species of legislation Civil Rights Act of 1866 is absolutely revolutionary.

Morrill was elected to finish the term in 1871 and served until he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury in 1876 by President Ulysses S.

Morrill, upon his assumption to office, was in charge of all the top secret and confidential files left over during Bristow's Whiskey Ring prosecutions.

Morrill did not have the reputation of a financial authority, he was believed to have political integrity and it was thought he would run the department as well as George S. Boutwell, Grant's first Treasury Secretary.

Seldon Connor filled by appointing Morrill's rival James G. Blaine as Maine's senator.

Like his predecessor Bristow, Morrill advocated for the gold standard, having viewed paper money as "irredeemable and inconvertible" and "essentially repugnant to the principles of the Constitution".