It is to their joint liberality, but especially to the attention, and skill, and faith in the final success of the enterprise maintained by Alfred Vail, that is due the success of my endeavors to bring the Telegraph at that time creditably before the public." The idea of telegraphs seems to have been in the air in the year 1837, for the House of Representatives had passed a resolution on the 3d of February, 1887, requesting the Secretary of the Treasury, Hon.

Levi Woodbury, to report to the House upon the propriety of establishing a system of telegraphs for the United States.

The term "telegraph" in those days included semaphores and other visual appliances, and, in fact, anything by which intelligence could be transmitted to a distance.
The Secretary issued a circular to "Collectors of Customs, Commanders of Revenue Cutters, and other Persons," requesting information.

Morse received one of these circulars, and in reply sent a long account of his invention.

But so hard to convince were the good people of that day, and so skeptical and even flippant were most of the members of Congress that six long years were to elapse, years filled with struggles, discouragements, and heart-breaking disappointments, before the victory was won.
Morse had still to contend with occasional fits of illness, for he writes to his brother Sidney from Morristown on November 8, 1837:-- "You will perhaps be surprised to learn that I came out here to be sick.
I caught a severe cold the day I left New York from the sudden change of temperature, and was taken down the next morning with one of my bilious attacks, which, under other treatment and circumstances, might have resulted seriously.