You can arrest this movement, and you alone can do it.
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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They want disunion, and not compromise or conciliation.
Some of you broke down the only political organization that could compete with us, and thus gave us an easy victory.
You have all contributed, more or less, in perverting the public mind as to our principles and purposes.
I have given my views, speaking for no other man, frankly and fearlessly, and I will stand by them now and in the future.
That is all we ask, and what we demand at all hazards.
The policy of this country ought to be to make everything national as far as possible.
The tax on spirits, tobacco and beer ought to be retained as the best objects of taxation either of domestic or imported goods.
Confiscation is not only justified by the laws of war, by the practice of many nations, but it is practiced by our enemies in the most obnoxious way.
Is it not, therefore, possible to frame a bill which will punish the prominent actors in the rebellion, proclaim amnesty to the great mass of citizens in the seceding states, and separate them from their leader?
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.
What a pity, he said, it would have been if so great a country as the United States had been disrupted on account of slavery.
It is impossible for an American to visit Paris without enjoyment and instruction.
Our gold dollar is certainly as good a unit of value as the franc; and so the English think of their pound sterling.
This affects the price of every commodity, cotton, corn, or wheat as well as silver.
There is not room on board of one ship for more than one captain.
Nevertheless, the trial is one that will be closely and sternly criticised by all the civilized world. . . .
I shall on all subjects have a policy to recommend, but none to enforce against the will of the people.
It was a departure from every principle of the financial policy of this government from its foundation.
The public records are conclusive against this pretense.
How can a man prove himself innocent against an innuendo?
It is in the nature of a compromise bill, and therefore, while it has the strength of a compromise bill, it has also the weakness of a compromise bill.
There are ideas in it which, while meeting the views of a majority, taken separately will be opposed by others.
We demand that this policy be abandoned, and that the volume of currency be made and kept equal to the wants of trade, leaving the restoration of legal tenders to par with gold, to be brought about by promoting the industries of the people…
I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune.
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