He that by the plow would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive.
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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The Democratic party, if put in power, will repeal that law and will do nothing for prohibition that you will accept.
This was a question not to be decided by interested capitalists, but by the careful estimate of business men.
The real controversy raised by the President's message was not whether taxes should be reduced, but what taxes should be reduced or abolished.
And now I submit if the time has not come when the people of the United States and Canada should take a broader view of their relations to each other than has heretofore seemed practicable.
I have always said to all friends that your equipment for the presidency was so ample and your services to the party so great that I felt there was a sort of inappropriateness in passing you by for any of us.
Experience has shown that such a work cannot be executed, especially on foreign soil, without the support and aid of a powerful government.
No patriotic man of either section would willingly restore the old conditions.
We differed on political issues, but we never quarreled with each other.
Men of adverse opinions may be true friends while they honestly differ on great public questions.
Nobody wants to go back to the old condition of things when it was gold to the bondholders and paper to the pensioners.
I wish to appeal to the reason and common sense of the people who hear me, for that is said to be the highest wisdom.
But the virtue of all these many kinds of money is that they are all good.
Do we get more money be demonetizing one-half of all we have?--for the gold now in circulation is more than one-half of the coin in circulation.
It affects every man, woman and child in our broad land, the rich with his investments, the poor with his labor.
Here is a treaty by which China, the most populous nation in the world, agreed that the United States may exclude the class of people of China that we do not want here, making a discrimination against them among all nations of the world.
But it is done upon certain terms and conditions, that in respect to those who are here now they shall be treated as all other peoples are treated; that no discrimination shall be made against them; that no prejudicial mark shall be put…
By the terms of this bill I think the treaty is violated, and I, for one, do not propose to vote for the conference report on that ground.
But he declares himself to be a bimetallist in the true sense of the term.
His personal participation in all our fiscal legislation gives him an unequaled knowledge both of principles and details, and he is remarkably successful in making them clear to the simplest intelligence.
For one I will never agree to the revival of state bank paper money, which cannot be made legal tender, and which, on the first sign of alarm, will disappear or be lost in the hands of the holder.
The gravity of this issue cannot be measured by words.
It is the only way in which two commodities of unequal value can be maintained at parity with each other.
It means a repudiation of a portion of all debts, public and private.
I worked hard that winter, for hard work, I thought, was the way to fortune.
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