 While strongly in favor of maintaining the Union at any cost, Morgan was equally opposed to any governmental interference with the state institution of the South, slavery, and believed that the Federal government had no legal right to abolish the practice.Morgan campaigned in Ohio for former army general George B. McClellan in the 1864 Presidential Election.In 1865 he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Governor of Ohio, being defeated by his former commander in the Kanawha Valley, Jacob D. Cox.