I do not believe any terms which our people could yield, and preserve their own self-respect, would satisfy South Carolina, Florida, or some of the other southern states, because they are bent upon disunion.
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 is utterly idle to talk about any such terms of concession.
Can you expect this 'black Republican party,' as you please to call it, will yield to you what your northern Democratic associates dare not?
They want disunion, and not compromise or conciliation.
Again, I say, what is the use of concession, conciliation, or compromise, when, if we yield everything you demand, you cannot say to us 'It will save us from disunion or war?' Are we not in danger of quarreling about terms of conciliation…
If it now fortifies itself by sectional animosities, if it rises from party rebellion to sectional and civil war, still it must, and will, be met with determined resistance.
If a single state may destroy our nationality, then, indeed, is the wisdom of our fathers the wisdom of babes.
If we hold this Union, and all the rights it secures to us, and all the hopes we have upon it, upon the whim or will of a single state, then, indeed, it is the weakest government ever devised by man.
How useless it is to talk about compromises, concessions, conciliation, adjustment, when, if everything was conceded, the integrity of the government may be broken up by a majority of a single state.
Let us compromise, and we will preserve the Union; civil war will be averted.' This, I know, is the earnest appeal of patriotic men in the southern states, who would gladly give their lives to stop the march of treason in those states.
Let not physical force be arrayed in civil war until the last hope of peace and conciliation has been exhausted; then let each branch of the government, acting in concert with each other, perform its respective duties, though the heavens…
No man can contemplate the inevitable results of such a war without the most serious desire to avert it.
I know that all the gentlemen around me must deeply deplore a civil war, especially if that war shall involve the fate of this capital and the disruption of the government.
If the civil authority refuse to call for such aid, or suppress the courts, the military power cannot interfere.
It is the duty of the government to suppress insurrection in a state; but in this event the military power can only be used in strict subordination to the civil authority.
No section and no state can, because the presidential election has gone against it, say, 'We will have this change in the constitution, or we will fire upon your flag; we will have that change in the constitution, or we will seize upon…
If we can stand by each other, if our constituents will stand by us in that emphatic declaration, I do believe the good ship that has borne us thus far on a prosperous voyage will outlive the storm.
I can join heartily with all those who made that pledge, whatever else they may think or believe about the questions that divide our people.
I had hoped that, while we were discussing, you would insist upon the protection of the property of the United States, and that our flag should not be dishonored until we separated, in peace or in war.
I had fondly hoped, while we disagreed, and while I knew that our disagreement was marked and decided, that you, gentlemen of the south, would yourselves take the lead in the defense of our property and our honor; therefore I sat silent.
Even if to-morrow I should vote to give South Carolina license to leave the confederacy, if I had the power, yet, while that flag floats, it is the bounden and sacred duty of this government to protect it against all enemies, and at all…
I appeal to you again; I appeal to the Representatives of all the states, whether we shall allow Fort Sumter, the only place where our flag floats in the harbor of Charleston, to be surrendered at discretion.
We are the equals of each other; we are of the same blood, the same parentage, the same character; your warm sun has quickened your blood, but our cold climate has steadied our intellects and braced our energies.
I know that your southern people are brave, spirited, active, quick; no man doubts that; but if you have made any misapprehension about the northern people--if you suppose that, because they are cold, because they are not fired by your hot…
If this government is divided, though we may agree to separate in peace--though every man here may sign the bond--we know that events hurriedly running forward will bring these two sections in hostile array against each other; and then…
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