The Union already embraces discordant elements enough without adding others.
John Sherman
The Public Record
John Sherman was an American politician from Ohio who served in federal office throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. A member of the Republican Party, he served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He also served as Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State. Sherman sought the Republican presidential nomination three times, coming closest in 1888, but was never chosen by the party. Between 1861 and 1897, John Sherman served in the U.S. Senate for nearly 32 years and holds the record for longest serving senator from the state of Ohio.
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Canada and Mexico as independent republics will be more valuable to the United States than if carved into additional states.
Our family of states is already large enough to create embarrassment in the Senate, and a republic should not hold dependent provinces or possessions.
The events of the future are beyond the vision of mankind, but I hope our people will be content with internal growth, and avoid the complications of foreign acquisitions.
It was settled by this war that we have a country limited in its powers by the constitution of the United States fairly construed.
Our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country" has been the watchword and creed of my public life.
Proud of Ohio, of its history and people, willing at all times to sound its praise in the sisterhood of states, yet, according to my convictions, the United States is entitled to my allegiance, and all parts of it should receive equal care…
Though my grateful thanks are due to them and have been often expressed, yet I have felt, as they do, that my duty was to the whole country.
During forty years of public life, though many able men have aspired to the office I hold, the people of Ohio, through their general assembly, have preferred me to represent them.
What I have written is no doubt clouded with partisanship, but I would not be honest if I did not express my attachment to my party.
The life of a civilian is in what he says or writes, that of a soldier in what he does.
The framework of the McKinley law, with such changes as experience may show to be essential, would remove the tariff from among the political questions of the day and give reasonable encouragement to American industries.
Letters are the best evidence of current thought or events, but they ought to be guarded by the person to whom they are written as confidential communications, not to be disclosed to the injury of the writer.
Our country was built up on intelligence, obedience to law, desire for freedom and the equal enjoyment of rights.
It was of these men that Lord Chatham said that they had prepared papers stronger than ever emanated from any court of Europe.
It is a marvel of the world that these humble colonies, composed of plain men, for there were no nobles or rich men in those times, furnished genius which brought to mankind greater wisdom in the framing of a government than ever elsewhere…
Cleveland was a positive force in sustaining all measures in support of the public credit.
The McKinley act, I believe, was the most carefully framed, especially in its operative clauses and its classification of duties, of any tariff bill ever passed by the Congress of the United States.
The Wilson bill sacrificed the interests of every farmer in the United States, except probably the growers of rice and of fruit in the south.
This gross injustice is done under the name of free raw materials.
I appealed to the Senate to give some protection to this great industry of our country.
By it a revenue of over eight millions a year was surrendered for the benefit of woolen manufacturers.
Free wool was the culminating atrocity of the tariff law.
I made every effort to prevent this injustice.
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