What I would aspire to, in case public opinion should decide to make me a candidate for President, would be to unite in co-operation with the Republican party all the national elements of the country that contributed to or aided in any way…
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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All these objections might be met except the one which I think is unanswerable, that my presence here in the completion of a public duty is far more important to the whole country and the cause we advocate than if I were to run as a…
I feel that I cannot accept this high compliment, without acknowledging that I am but one of the many who have contributed to the accomplishment of this beneficent object.
The only merit I can claim is the honest and earnest effort, with others, to secure the adoption of the policy of resumption, and to have executed the law according to its letter and spirit.
It was my good fortune to be selected, by my colleagues in the Senate, to present the resumption act, which was framed with their aid and in their councils, and to hold my present office at the time when, by its terms, the law was to be…
From the date of these transactions the bonds of the United States rapidly advanced in value.
The effect of this has been to send the price of the bonds up by three-fourths per cent., and to create a demand for them.
I have no doubt but that the use of these bonds in this manner has stimulated purchases of grain and produce from us which would never have left our shores if payment for the same could only have been made in bullion.
They take the place of actual gold in settling exchanges, and thereby prevent the disturbances in the money market which always result from the moving of bullion.
I hoped you would consent, because I think it quite important, for many reasons, that we should dispose of bonds on this side of the water.
It is the speculators and not the investors, as a rule, who deal in stocks when they are cheap.
I have confidence that it will be beneficial to the holder, in begetting habits of saving, and to the treasury, in aiding refunding; but its great benefit will be that the people themselves will in this way have a direct interest in…
These certificates will always be redeemable in the bonds stipulated for, and can, with profit, be issued, while the money received for them can be used in redeeming bonds bearing a higher rate of interest.
Their possible use as currency is certainly no objection to them; for, though I adhere as strictly as anyone to a specie standard of value, I think that, it being constantly maintained by ample reserves and prompt redemption, current money…
It combines, in the cheapest form, all the benefits of any system of savings banks that has been devised.
The primary purpose of these certificates is to enable persons of limited means to husband small savings as they accrue, and place them where they will draw interest and become the nest egg for future accumulation.
I can say for all the officers of the treasury that not one of them was interested in transactions growing out of resumption or refunding, or did or could derive any benefit therefrom.
This provision was a part of the contract between the government and the bondholder, and could only be changed by the consent of both parties.
To wish otherwise is to hope for war, danger, and national peril, calamities to which our nation, like others, may be subject, but against which the earnest aspiration of every patriot will be uttered.
To resume is to recover from illness, to escape danger, to stand sound and healthy in the financial world, with our currency based upon the intrinsic value of solid coin.
It has always seemed strange that so large and respectable a body of our fellow- citizens should regard the continuance of irredeemable money as the permanent policy of a nation so strong and rich as ours, able to pay every dollar of its…
We then provided for the issue of legal tender United States notes, as an extreme remedy in the nation's peril.
Most of those who voted for it justified their vote upon the ground that the very existence of the country depended upon its ability to coin into money its promises to pay.
A nation would not, except in dire necessity, issue its promises to pay money when it is unable to redeem those promises.
Irredeemable money is always the result of war, pestilence, or some great misfortune.
Politicians like John Sherman
