Morse was born in Wachenheim, Bavaria, in the German Confederation, the son of Charlotte (Mehlinger) and Jacob Morse. His family was Jewish.[2][3] He attended the common schools in Wachenheim. He immigrated to the United States in 1849 and resided for about a year in Sandwich, New Hampshire.
He moved to Boston, Massachusetts and worked in a clothing store, which he later purchased and operated until his death.
Morse was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1876 and 1880. He was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate in 1870 and 1872 for election to the Forty-second and Forty-third Congresses. The Boston Globe later noted that "few men step, as he did, from private station, immediately upon the floor of Congress, and he [had] never gone before the people except as a candidate for membership in that body".[5] He was elected to the Forty-fifth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1877 - March 3, 1885). He served as chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of the Navy (Forty-eighth Congress). He declined to accept a renomination in 1884. Morse was elected president of the Post Publishing Co. publisher of The Boston Post, in that year. He returned to elected office as a Representative to the Fiftieth Congress (March 4, 1887 - March 3, 1889). He served as chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State for the Congress.
Morse was not a candidate for renomination in 1888. He resumed business activities, and died in Boston on December 15, 1892.
