He earned small sums from his daguerreotypes and his teaching.
By December, 1842, Morse was in funds again; sufficiently, at
least, to enable him to go to Washington for another appeal to
Congress. And at last, on February 23, 1843, a bill appropriating
thirty thousand dollars to lay the wires between Washington and
Baltimore passed the House by a majority of six. Trembling with
anxiety, Morse sat in the gallery of the House while the vote was
taken and listened to the irreverent badinage of Congressmen as
they discussed his bill. One member proposed an amendment to set
aside half the amount for experiments in mesmerism, another
suggested that the Millerites should have a part of the money,
and so on; however, they passed the bill. And that night Morse
wrote: "The long agony is over."
But the agony was not over. The bill had yet to pass the Senate.
The last day of the expiring session of Congress arrived, March
3, 1843, and the Senate had not reached the bill. Says Morse's
biographer:
In the gallery of the Senate Professor Morse had sat all the last
day and evening of the session. At midnight the session would
close. Assured by his friends that there was no possibility of
the bill being reached, he left the Capitol and retired to his
room at the hotel, dispirited, and well-nigh broken-hearted.
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