Morrow actively campaigned for Abraham Lincoln for president in 1860, and served in both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly.

During the Civil War, he raised and commanded the 32nd Kentucky Infantry Regiment of the Union Army, which was in active service from 1862 to 1863.

After the war, he remained active with the Republican Party, and was its nominee for governor in 1883, losing to J. Proctor Knott.

[3] In 1848, the family moved to Danville, Kentucky, where Alexander found work as a merchant and hotel keeper.

He was one of twenty-eight men who founded the Kentucky Republican Party, and he actively campaigned for Abraham Lincoln during the 1860 presidential election.

[1] Elected to the Kentucky Senate in 1865, Morrow resigned the following year to accept an appointment as U.S. Assessor of Internal Revenue for the Eighth Collection District.

He served in that capacity until 1869, and in 1870, he removed to Topeka, Kansas, and lived there for fourteen months before returning to Somerset and resuming his legal practice.

[14] Morrow charged that the Democrats had, since the end of the Civil War, squandered the state's money and accomplished little.

[15] Morrow was no match for Knott's oratory nor the scathing press of Louisville Courier-Journal editor Henry Watterson.

[17] He was elected circuit court judge for Kentucky's 8th judicial district in 1886, winning by a margin of 862 votes.