Under these conditions it became necessary to approach the specie standard of value without a contraction of the currency.
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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It was not the intention of the framers of this law to demonetize silver, because they were openly avowed bimetallists, but it limited coinage to silver bought by the government at market price.
The mischief would be great indeed if all the world were to adopt but one of the precious metals as the standard of value.
To adopt gold alone would diminish the specie currency more than one-half; and the reduction the other way, should silver be taken as the only standard, would be large enough to prove highly disastrous to the human race.
The present laws consequently authorize both a gold dollar unit and a silver dollar unit, differing from each other in intrinsic value.
If, however, such a coin is authorized, it should be issued only as a commercial dollar, not as a standard unit of account, and of the exact value of the Mexican dollar, which is the favorite for circulation in China and Japan and other…
The authority given in the bill as it finally passed for coining the so-called trade dollar, met all the demands of the silver producing states.
But the silver dollar at that time was worth more than the gold dollar.
I did not do it because of that, but I did it because gold was then only coined for the benefit of private depositors; we were not using gold except for limited purposes.
The silver dollar of 412½ grains, by reason of its bullion and intrinsic value being greater than its nominal value, long since ceased to be a coin of circulation, and is melted by manufacturers of silverware.
I want the standard gold, and no paper money not redeemable in gold; no paper money the value of which is not ascertained; no paper money that will organize a gold board to speculate in it.
Everybody knows what a dollar in gold is worth.
In every stage of the bill, and every print, the dollar of 412½ grains was prohibited, and the single gold standard recognized, proclaimed, and understood.
It has always been within the power of Congress to correct this error, if error was made; but Congress has refused over and over again to do it.
If this is done, it will be to secure a cheaper dollar of less purchasing power, with the view to enable debtors to pay debts, contracted on the basis of gold coin, with silver coins, worth, with free coinage, less than one-half of gold…
In reviewing, at this distance of time, the legislation of 1873, in respect to the coinage of silver, I am of the opinion that it was fortunate that the United States then dropped the coinage of the old silver dollar.
In view of these results, certain to come from the free coinage of silver, I am convinced that until some international arrangement can be made, the present system of coinage should continue in force.
We generally agreed that it was a false-pretended neutrality, and not a too hasty proclamation of neutrality, that gave us an unquestionable right to demand indemnity from Great Britain for the depredations of the Alabama and other English…
My own opinion was that the latter course was the most polite and just; but the majority decided, after full consideration and debate, upon the first alternative.
General Grant was, in every sense of the word, an honest man.
He was so honest that he did not suspect others, and no doubt confided in, and was friendly with, those who abused his confidence.
In these days, and with such Congresses, it takes grease to oil the wheels of legislation.
I intend, in the interests of the city of Cincinnati and of the whole country, to press the Southern Railroad bill, and to secure its passage as soon as possible, but it is rather poor encouragement to read such libels in a prominent paper…
I have not been ignorant that there has been a studied effort-- ascribed by me to the common tactics of political warfare--to create the impression, by vague innuendo, that I have used my official position to make money for myself.
Faran to come to my home at Mansfield, and I will show him all I possess there, and render him a full account of all I have elsewhere, and if I can't fairly account for it without being suspected of receiving bribes, or gifts, or stealing…
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