John Sherman

As long as John Sherman desires to be Senator, or is willing to take the office, there is no use for me or any other man with senatorial aspirations to be a candidate against him.

There was a feeling among Republicans of humiliation and shame that the people had placed in power the very men who waged war against the country for years, created a vast public debt, and destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of…

But as long as we live let us come together whenever we can, and if we can bring back the memories of those glorious days it will do us good, and, still more, good to the children who will look up to us as examples.

You have overcome all enemies, save death, which we must all meet as our comrades who have gone before us have done, and submit.

Yes, my fellow-soldiers, you have a right to sit beneath your own vine and fig tree and be glad, for you can be afraid of no man.

Peace universal, not only at home but abroad, and America standing high up in the niche of nations, envied of all mankind and envied because we possess all the powers of a great nation vindicated by a war of your own making and your own…

These are the kind of heroes a republic makes, and these are the kind of heroes we worship as one free man may worship another.

Above all, they should keep the United States of American in the forefront of progress, intelligence, education, temperance, religion, and in all the virtues that tend to elevate, refine, and ennoble mankind.

And this generation may fairly claim that it has strengthened the work of the fathers, has made freedom universal, and disunion impossible.

The outline of the growth of the United States presents the most remarkable development in the history of mankind.

I referred to the unrivaled body of water, Puget Sound, and said that in the geography of the world it was not equaled.

The clouds were above the head of the mountain and it stood erect, covered with snow, one of the most beautiful sights in nature.

In a military sense Puget Sound can be easily defended from an enemy coming from the sea, and, though the country is mountainous, it is capable of sustaining a large population in the extensive valleys both east and west of the coast range.

They are deep, with high banks rising in some places to mountains, and capable of holding all the navies of the world.

These waters furnish perhaps the finest harbors in the world.

This whole boundless continent is ours, and only awaits the time when we choose to assert our right to take it and hold it.

Our general prosperity is increasing and abounding, and although, as I have said, there may be waves here and there, the progress is onward and upward and hopeful.

Our credit is unrivaled in all the world, for no nation can borrow money at so low a rate as our United States bonds now bear.

It is due to frankness and manhood for me to say that in the country there is a feeling now, that if the present system should be continued unchanged, the result would be that gold would be demonetized, being worth more than silver as…

I expressed my appreciation of the importance of California, and its enormous development and influence upon the country since it became part of the United States.

As it is, the government buys the silver at a certain valuation and then coins it at another valuation, to make a profit on the difference.

In other words, let the silver dollar have enough grains of silver in it to make it intrinsically worth, in the market, the gold dollar.

I was averse to giving any expression of opinion, but the topic was irrepressible, and I finally said to the representative of one of the leading papers: "I am in favor of a silver dollar, equal, in market value, to the gold…

I said I was in favor of both silver and gold, and of using both to be coined upon the basis of market value, that in this way the volume of money would be increased instead of being diminished, and our money would become the standard…

We had gone through a struggle of some years to make our paper money equal to gold, and the next struggle ought to be to do the same with silver money.