Political Quotes

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.

This strange turn in events has but one example in history, and that was the restoration of Charles II, after the brilliant but brief Protectorate of Cromwell, and, like that restoration, is a reproach to the civilization of the age.

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We deprived them of no political power, no blood was shed; no confiscation was had; and more generous terms were conceded to them than ever before had been extended to an unsuccessful party in a civil war.

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By this system, and by the acquiescence of a few northern states, the men who led in the Civil War have been restored to power, and hope, practically, to reverse all the results of the war.

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This is the spectre that now haunts American politics, and may make it just as vital and necessary to appeal to the northern states to unite again against this evil, not so open and arrogant as slavery, but more dangerous and equally…

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When we point out these offenses committed in the south, it is said that we are raising the bloody shirt, that we are reviving the issues of the war--that the war is over.

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Anger and hate and prejudice are not wise counselors in peace or in war.

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Generosity, forgiveness and charity are great qualities of the human heart, but, like everything else that is good, they may be carried to excess, and may degenerate into faults.

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While we waive the animosities of the war, we must never fail to hold on, with courage and fortitude, to all the results of the war.

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Our soldiers fought in no holiday contest, not merely to test the manly qualities of the men of the north and the south, not for power or plunder, or wealth or title.

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They fought to secure to themselves and their posterity the blessings of a strong national government; the preservation of the Union--a Union not of states, but of the people of the United States; not a confederate government, but a…

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The preservation of the Union was the central idea of the war.

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Fellow-citizens, the line drawn between the two parties is now as distinct as it was during the war, but we occupy a different field of battle.

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Then we fought for the preservation of the Union, and, as a means to that end, for the abolition of slavery.

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Now the Union is saved and slavery is abolished, we fight for the equal political rights of all men, and the faithful observance of the constitutional amendments.

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We are for the exercise of national authority, for the preservation of rights conferred by the constitution, and upon this broad issue we invite co-operation from the south as well as the north.

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If they do this we will have peace, union and fraternity.

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Upon this issue I will go before the people of the south, and, turning my back upon all the animosities of the war, appeal only to their sense of honor and justice.

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I closed with an exhortation to support Governor Foraker and the Republican ticket and to elect a legislature that would place Ohio where she had usually stood, in the fore front of Republican states, for the Union, for liberty and justice…

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We had the Blaine, the Conkling and other factions, and many so-called third parties, and the distinctive principles upon which the Republican party was founded were in danger of being forgotten.

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I referred to the copious evidence of outrage and wrong, including many murders of negroes and of white Republicans, published in official reports, and challenged him to deny it.

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I said this was not only unjust to the colored man but unjust to the white men of the north.

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The colored people have, practically, no voice in Congress and no voice in the electoral college.

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An injustice so gross and palpable will not be submitted to by the colored people of the south, nor by fair-minded white men in the south who hate wrong and injustice; nor by the great northern people, by whose sacrifices in the Union…

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It will not be submitted to, and Governor Hoadley, from his former position, ought to be one of the first to demand and insist upon a remedy, and not seek to avoid or belittle it by cant phrases.

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I had denounced fraud and violence in elections in the south, and at Washington I had to confess recent frauds attempted or practiced in Cincinnati.

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Politicians like John Sherman