In other words, it was a compromise which, like many other compromises, was in its results an injury of great magnitude, but it was an honest difference of opinion between the Senate and the House, in which, tested by the march of time, the Senate was right and the House was wrong.
Sherman reflects on a legislative compromise that he believes ultimately harmed the nation, asserting that the Senate was correct in their stance.
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It seems to me that in the present condition of our finances there is no necessity for conferring these large powers on the Secretary of the Treasury.
He took strong ground against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and in 1859 was a competitor with me for the position of speaker, but withdrew in my favor after the first ballot.
God forbid that the despots of the Old World should ever adorn their infernal logic by pointing to a disrupted Union here!
But, sir, I have no hope, while this House is constituted as it is now, of instituting any radical reform.
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