We must as firmly resist nullification now as when Jackson threatened 'by the eternal God' to hang the original nullifier, Calhoun.
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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We are determined to assert the supremacy of the United States in all matters pertaining to the United States, and to enforce the laws of the United States, come what will.
Free banking open to all, with prompt and easy redemption, supplies a currency to meet the varying wants of different periods and seasons.
I must add, however, that I do not believe the banking system would be sustained by popular opinion unless the great body of our currency was in the form of United States notes or certificates based upon coin.
The Republican party has won no victory more complete than the passage, execution and success of the resumption act.
The panic of 1873 put an end to all these wild, visionary schemes, and left the country prostrate and in ruin.
Now that resumption is a success, Democrats say the Republican party did not bring it about, but that Providence has done it; that bountiful crops here and bad crops in Europe have been the cause of all the prosperity that has come since…
We should be, and are, thankful to the Almighty, but we are under no thanks whatever to the Democratic party.
It has not, for twenty- five years, had Providence on its side, but we may fairly infer that, as it has steadily resisted Providence and patriotic duty for more than twenty years, it must have had the devil on its side.
Democrats can claim no credit, but stand convicted of a blundering mistake in abandoning the old and tried principles of their party, and following after strange gods with the hope of a brief and partial success.
They have failed, and that dogma for hard money, which they abandoned, has been adopted by the Republican party, as the corner stone of its greatest success.
While I did not concur in all the views stated by the President, especially as to the policy of retiring United States notes then in circulation, yet his general conclusions in favor of the coin standard were, in my view, sound and just.
I was very willing to hold on to the progress made in making United States notes equivalent to coin rather than to attempt to secure their retirement from circulation.
I would not make such a recommendation now, as I am convinced that United States notes based on coin in the treasury are the best form of currency yet devised, and that the volume might be gradually increased as the volume of business…
I see no reason why the people of the United States should not have the benefit of this cheap loan rather than the national banks, and there are many reasons why the issue of a like amount of notes by national banks cannot fill the place…
The issue of bank notes would be governed by the opinions and interest of the banks, and the amount could be increased or diminished according to their interests and without regard to the public good.
There is another objection to a sole dependence on bank notes as currency: They cannot be made a legal tender either by the states or the United States, while it is settled by the Supreme Court that notes of the United States may be made a…
The only danger in our present currency is that the amount may be increased to a sum that cannot be maintained at par with coin, but the same or a greater danger would exist if the volume of paper money should be left to the interested…
For the want of paper money at the commencement of the Civil War, the United States was compelled to issue its notes and to make them a legal tender.
Without this the effort to preserve the Union would have utterly failed.
With such a lesson before us it is futile to attempt to conduct the business of a great country like ours with coin alone.
Gold can only be a measure or standard of value, but cannot be the current money of the country.
Silver also can only be used as money for the small transactions of life, its weight and bulk forbidding its use in commerce or trade.
The fluctuations in market value of these metals make it impossible to permit the free coinage of both at any ratio with each other without demonetizing one of them.
I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune.
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