The war being open and flagrant to break up the Union, they were not entitled to the benefit of any stipulation made in their favor as states in the Union.
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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These states had placed themselves in a position by rebellion where they had no constitutional rights which we were bound to observe.
At that early day, I believed that it was the duty of Congress to confiscate the slaves in the seceding states as the natural result of the war.
The abolition of slavery would bring to the city intelligent mechanics and laboring men who would never compete with the labor of slaves, and who, finding none there but freemen, would develop the great advantages of the city.
I felt that we were bound to consult the material interest of the people of the District, and that emancipation would add to the value of their property and also add to the population of the city.
I felt that now was the time when this moral conviction should be heard and heeded by the national legislature.
As long as slavery existed in the District, where Congress had the power to abolish it, agitation and excitement would be ceaseless.
The great mass of our constituents were opposed to slavery, morally, socially and politically.
I believed also that the social influence of Washington, and the wealth and property controlled and owned in a great measure by slaveholding residents there, had been always against the government of the United States and in favor of the…
I endeavored to give to the subject careful consideration, and came to the conclusion that it was expedient then to emancipate the very few slaves in the District, fewer than there had been at any time within forty years, and fewer than…
The real question was whether that was the time for emancipation.
Slavery was made the pretext for, and, I believe, was, the real cause of the war.
I had from the beginning declared my opposition to any interference with slavery in the District, but the changed condition of the country demanded a change of public policy in this respect.
New states, and especially agricultural states, have not the same ability to pay direct taxes as older commercial and manufacturing states, having within them great cities with accumulated wealth, in the form of stocks, bonds and patents.
Besides the difficulty of collecting it, there is the palpable objection that it is an unequal, and therefore an unjust, tax.
I trust the time is far distant when such sweeping internal taxation will be required again, but if it should come, the Congress of that day can find in our experience resources more bountiful than Aladdin's lamp.
This decision, if adhered to, may cripple the government in times of emergency.
An income tax was paid, and cheerfully paid, by American citizens during and since the war, in vast sums, and it did not occur to citizen, lawyer or judge that the constitution of the United States made a distinction between incomes from…
In the present condition of affairs, I doubt the expediency of such a tax, especially in view of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States recently rendered.
I then believed, and now believe, that a moderate income tax, levied on all incomes above the sum of $1,000, or above a sum that will supply the ordinary wants of an average family in the United States with the necessaries of life, should…
The patience and even cheerfulness with which the people of the United States submitted to this severe taxation on their domestic productions, was a matter of surprise, not only among our own people, but in European countries.
All internal taxes are collected at less cost than any other form of taxation devised, and should be maintained as long as the expenses growing out of the war shall remain unpaid.
The tax on tobacco and cigars is a moderate one, but the consumption of them is far less dangerous than that of spirits in their influence upon society.
Still, it is an appetite that will be gratified, however severe may be the laws against its use, and while this habit exists the tax upon whisky, by limiting the quantity consumed, is beneficial to society at large.
It is the cause of innumerable crimes, of poverty and distress in the family and home.
Politicians like John Sherman
