It is easy to formulate general principles, but when we come to apply them to the great number of articles named on the tariff list, we find that the interests of their constituents control the action of Senator and Members.
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 tariff law was not, therefore, consistent with any general principle, but it was nearer so than the one in force before its passage, and the necessity of passing some law that would reduce taxation was so imperative that the…
The execution of the McKinley law under President Harrison demonstrated that it would furnish ample revenue to support the government, and it should have remained on the statute book with such slight changes as experience might have shown…
I felt the deepest interest in this campaign, not from the selfish desire to hold longer an office I had held for nearly thirty years, but I thought that in Ohio we were to have a great financial battle, upon the result of which might…
No matter what their differences upon the tariff question may be, every Republican who wishes the success of his party should be made to understand that there is another and perhaps a graver question to be settled in Ohio this year.
I had too much faith in the Republicans of the country to believe that when they understood the situation they would fail to arouse themselves to the necessities of the hour.
I am rather complimented than otherwise to be again selected as the target of this crusade against a sound currency.
It is a question that has been nearest my heart for a good many years, and I am perfectly willing to abide the result upon my position thereon.
I believe it ought to be so, for the leading questions involved are purely business questions, affecting material interests common alike to men of all parties.
Upon two great measures of public policy the Republican and Democratic parties have made a formal and distinct issue, and these are to be submitted to the people of Ohio in November, and your decision will have a marked effect upon public…
Now, you all know that the money in circulation in the United States--all of it--is good, good as gold.
If coinage of all these metals was free, and any holder of copper, nickel, silver or gold could carry it to the mint to be coined, we would have no money but copper and nickel, because they are the cheaper metals, worth less than…
For the same reason, if the coinage of silver was free at the ratio of sixteen of silver to one of gold, no gold would be coined, because sixteen ounces of silver are not worth one ounce of gold.
The one distinctive, striking feature of the law of 1890 is, that the United States will not pay for silver bullion more than its market value.
Free coinage means that we shall purchase not merely four and a half million ounces a month, but all the silver that is offered, come from where it may, if presented in quantities of one hundred ounces at a time.
If that is the effect of limited purchases at one dollar an ounce, the market price, what will be the effect of unlimited purchases at 29 cents an ounce more than market price?
It would inundate us with the vast hoards of silver in countries where silver alone is the current money, and draw to us all the rapidly-increasing production of silver mines in the world.
The experience of all the world belies this statement.
In no country in the world where free coinage exists is sixteen ounces of silver equal to one ounce of gold.
France and the United States maintain the parity between the two by carefully limiting the coinage and receiving and redeeming silver coins as the equivalent of gold.
This does not follow, but, even if it be true, the purchasing power of our money will be diminished.
As our government is founded on the will of the people, when that will is fixed, our government is powerless, and the only question is whether to let things slide into general anarchy, or the formation of two or more confederacies which…
But even if the southern states be allowed to depart in peace, the first question will be revenue.
Therefore, if the south make good their confederation and their plan, the northern confederacy must do likewise or blockade.
So, look on it in any view, I see no result but war and consequent changes in the form of government.
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