John Sherman

There have been many things said and done by the Republican leaders that I utterly detest.

If so, then comes civil war, a fearful subject for Americans to think of.

If, by a successful revolution, they can go out of the Union, they establish a principle that will break the government into fragments.

They drove Buchanan from his Kansas policy; they got up this new dogma about slave protection, they broke up the Charleston convention merely to advance secession; they are now hurrying forward excited men into acts of treason, without…

As a matter of course, I rejoice in the result, for in my judgment the administration of Lincoln will do much to dissipate the feeling in the south against the north, by showing what are the real purposes of the Republican party.

It was his infernal policy in that state (I can hardly think of the mean and bad things he allowed there without swearing) that drove off Douglas, led to the division of the Democratic party and the consequent election of Lincoln.

If they believe their own newspapers, or, what is far worse, the lying organs of the Democratic party in the free states, they have just cause to think so.

With a pretty good knowledge of the material of our House, I would far prefer that any one of the candidates be elected by the people rather than allow the contest to be determined by Congress.

The disorders of the last winter, and the fear of their renewal, have, without doubt, induced a good many citizens to vote for the Republican ticket.

Indeed, the division of the Democratic party on precisely the same question that separated the Republican party from the Democratic party made its defeat certain.

His rude and brutal language and conduct should have excluded him from the Senate in the early days of the session, but he was permitted to retire without censure, after a long debate upon the terms of his proposed expulsion.

Wigfall, of Texas, though his state had seceded, was permitted to linger in the Senate and to attend executive sessions, where he was not only a traitor but a spy.

These and other declarations I thought should have been promptly resented by the immediate expulsion of these Senators.

I had, however, before my election, witnessed, with deep humiliation, the Senate debates, feeling that the Republican Senators were too timid in the steps taken to purge that body of persons whom I regarded as traitors.

Our tariff bill is unfortunate in being launched at this time, as it will be made the scape-goat of all difficulties.

S., but still I regret that you have left the House where I think you might have rendered more important services to your country than you will find opportunity to do in the Senate.

I can assure you that no recent event has given me so much sincere gratification as your election, which I think a most worthy reward to a faithful public servant.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the…

Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection.

You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect, and defend' it.

You can have no conflict, without being yourselves the aggressors.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.

God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.

This could not have been effected under our constitution but for the Rebellion, so that, in truth, South Carolina, unwittingly, led to the only way by which slavery could be abolished in the present century.

Upon this question I had been conservative, but I can see now that this contest was irrepressible, and that I would soon have been in favor of the gradual abolition of slavery in all the states.