John Sherman

Neither of these is an article of necessity, but all are used purely to gratify an appetite, in many cases indulged to excess.

The tax on spirits, tobacco and beer ought to be retained as the best objects of taxation either of domestic or imported goods.

At the end of the war internal taxes were cheerfully paid by the people, and yielded far more revenue to the government than the customs duties and all other sources of revenue combined.

This act also provided for the issue of a large increase of non-interest bearing treasury notes, which were made lawful money and a legal tender in payment of all debts, public or private, within the United States, except for duties on…

We have a currency limited in amount, restrained and governed by law, checked by the power of visitation and by the limitation of liabilities, safe, uniform, and convertible in every part of the country.

Not one dollar of the notes issued by national banks has been lost to any person through the failure of a bank.

This system of national banks has furnished to the people of the United States a currency combining the national faith with the private stock and private credit of individuals.

These two measures, the absorption of the state banks, and the establishment of the system of national banks, taken in connection with the legal tender act, were the most important financial measures of the war, and, tested by time, have…

The want of such nationality, I then declared, was one of the great evils of the times; and it was that principle of state rights, that bad sentiment that had elevated state authority above the great national authority, that had been the…

The policy of this country ought to be to make everything national as far as possible.

It would furnish a market for our bonds by requiring them to be held as the security for bank notes, and thus advance the value of the bonds.

The question then occurred whether the bank bill proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and introduced by me into the Senate, would tend to secure a national currency beyond the danger of inflation.

If a further issue of United States notes were authorized, it would be at once followed by the issue of more bank paper, and then we would have the wildest speculation.

If we increased our circulation, as was then proposed, it would create an inflation that would evidently lead to the derangement of all business affairs in the country.

An excessive issue of paper money by the government would produce bankruptcy and repudiation, not only of the notes abroad, but of bonds also.

Other European countries which relied upon government money alone had a similar experience.

The assignats of France, issued during her revolutionary period, shared the same fate.

Our revolutionary currency, continental money, depreciated until it became worthless.

The only answer to this was that history taught us that the public faith of a nation alone is not sufficient to maintain a paper currency.

But, it was asked, why look at all to the interest of the banks, why not directly issue the notes of the government, and thus save to the people the interest on the debt represented by the notes in circulation?

Was it not then possible to preserve to the government the exclusive right to issue paper money, and yet not injuriously affect the local banks?

The only power they derived from corporation not granted to all citizens was to issue notes as money, and this power was not necessary to their business or essential to their profit.

This was a privilege that no nation could safely surrender to individuals or banks.

It was the power to coin money, because when a bank issued its bill without the restraint of specie payments, it substantially coined money and false money.

It was a power that ought never to be exercised except by the government, and only when the state was in danger.