John Sherman: “It was a power that ought never to be exercised except by the government, and only when the state was in danger.”

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.

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.

If my life is prolonged I will do all I can to add to the strength and prosperity of the United States, but nothing to extend its limits or to add new dangers by acquisition of foreign territory.

The Union already embraces discordant elements enough without adding others.