To grant to foreign nations the reciprocal right of free importation into our ports of articles we cannot produce, in return for the free introduction into their ports of articles of American production.
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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To repeal all duties on articles of prime necessity which enter into the consumption of the American people and which cannot be produced in sufficient quantity in this country.
To place on imported articles which compete with articles that can be manufactured or produced in the United States, such a rate of duty as will secure to our farmers and laborers fair prices, fair wages, and will induce our people to…
When this large revenue was no longer necessary, many of these taxes were repealed, and then the tariff again became a political question between the Republican and Democratic parties.
During and after the war, for many years, any tariff that would produce enough revenue to meet current expenditures and pay the interest of the public debt, would necessarily give ample protection to domestic industries.
The tariff question grew out of a contest between free and slave labor.
I propose, therefore, in a plain way to give you my views on the tariff question, now on trial between the two great political parties of the United States.
I appeal to the conservative men of Ohio of both parties to repeat now the service they rendered the people of the United States in 1875, by the election of Governor Hayes, in checking the wave of inflation that then threatened the country.
Do we get more money be demonetizing one-half of all we have?--for the gold now in circulation is more than one-half of the coin in circulation.
This does not follow, but, even if it be true, the purchasing power of our money will be diminished.
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.
In no country in the world where free coinage exists is sixteen ounces of silver equal to one ounce of gold.
The experience of all the world belies this statement.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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…
But the virtue of all these many kinds of money is that they are all good.
Now, you all know that the money in circulation in the United States--all of it--is good, good as gold.
I wish to appeal to the reason and common sense of the people who hear me, for that is said to be the highest wisdom.
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…
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.
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.
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