 Loomis' request for a government appropriation had a precedent in an 1843 congressional grant of $30,000 to Samuel Morse, for the construction of an experimental wire telegraph line from Washington to Baltimore, Maryland.During the time Congress was evaluating this request, Morse conducted multiple onsite demonstrations of the telegraph's operation at the capitol building.In addition, the House Committee on Commerce, reviewing his proposal, noted that there was a similar telegraph system, developed by Charles Wheatstone, that was already in commercial operation in England, which had been "put into practical use for two or three hundred miles in Great Britain".