John Sherman

Let us not war with each other; but with the grasp of fellowship and friendship, regarding to the full each other's rights, and kind to each other's faults, let us go hand in hand in securing to every portion of our people their…

In such a contest, her hasty and impetuous violence may succeed for a time, but the victory will be short-lived and transient, and leave nothing but bitterness behind.

Any attempt by Congress to force this constitution upon the people of Kansas will be an effort to substitute the will of a small minority for that of an overwhelming majority of the people.

No opportunity was offered to the people to vote against the constitution.

The imperative issue, as pithily stated by Lincoln, was, all slave or all free states.

It is the principle of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, the principle of popular sovereignty, and the principle at the foundation of all popular government.

On the question of submitting the constitution to the bona fide resident settlers of Kansas, I am willing to stand or fall.

At once the south rejected the doctrine of popular sovereignty, and demanded, as a constitutional right, that slaves moved into a territory must be protected like other property, whether the people of the territory wish it or not.

Thus the Kansas question became a political question in the Supreme Court.

The doctrine of popular sovereignty could not, therefore, be relied upon to establish slavery in Kansas, and it was abandoned.

In other words, our claims were repudiated by France, their payment being refused, and, as we could not force their payment, we simply abandoned them.

I wrote an adverse report, but it was suppressed in the committee.

I had all the feeling of natural indignation against those great powers who sought to draw the United States into their controversies, and practice upon us enormities and outrages that we would not submit to for a moment in our day.

Fortunately a more numerous, courageous and intelligent population reversed all this, and led, not only to the exclusion of slavery in Kansas, but also to its abolition in the United States.

A more careful study of the motives and conduct of public men during this period has changed my opinion of many of them, and, especially, of President Pierce.

The only regret I feel is that the tone and temper of my remarks were not such as should be addressed to the President of the United States by a Member of Congress.

I am opposed to any interference by the northern people with slavery in the slave states; I act with the Republican party, with hundreds of thousands of others, simply because the Republican party resists the extension, but does not seek…

I showed this to be inaccurate by the express denial of such purpose in every platform of the Republican party.

He asserted that the purpose was not only to exclude slavery from Kansas, but also from places where it then existed.

His defeat was the postponement of the irrepressible conflict until it became apparent to all that our country must be all free or all slave territory.

In reviewing the past it is apparent that the election of Buchanan was necessary to convince the people of the north that no successful opposition to the extension of slavery could be made except by a party distinctly pledged to that…

He took strong ground against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and in 1859 was a competitor with me for the position of speaker, but withdrew in my favor after the first ballot.

It strengthened the Free State sentiment in Kansas, it aroused public sentiment in the north, and drove the south to adopt new and strange theories which led to divisions in the Democratic party and its disruption and overthrow in 1860.

It may not be this year, but, as sure as there is a God in heaven, such a union will be effected; and you will gain nothing by sustaining northern agitators in violating the compromise of your fathers.

Until these wrongs are righted, you must expect northern men to unite to redress them.