John Sherman: “You will, in all human probability, be involved in complications from which you cannot escape with honor.”

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.

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.

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.

It was settled by this war that we have a country limited in its powers by the constitution of the United States fairly construed.