Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet Part 81

"Very sincerely yours, "John Sherman.

"Hon. John B. Henderson."

After a brief visit to Mansfield I went to Columbus, where I met with a hearty reception from men of both political parties. The legislature was in session, and the senators and members, judges of the courts, and executive officers of the state, called upon me and gave me cordial greetings. I attended a reception at the house of Governor Dennison, where I met the leading citizens of Columbus.

On my return to the hotel I was serenaded by a band, and being introduced by Governor Dennison made a brief speech of a non-partisan character, and in closing said:

"I want to make one personal remark about myself. Some of my newspaper friends here have tried to make me a candidate for Governor of Ohio, but I hope none of you will vote for me in convention or before the people. I propose to stick to my present place until the question of resumption is settled beyond a doubt. I want to convince everybody that the experiment of resumption is a success; that we can resume; that the United States is not bound to have its notes hawked about at a discount, but that a note of the United States may travel about the world, everywhere received as equal to gold coin, and as good as any note ever issued by any nation, either in ancient or modern times. I want to see that our debt shall be reduced, which will be done through four per cent. bonds. If the present policy prevails, we shall be able to borrow all the money needed for national uses for less than four per cent., perhaps as low as three."

I returned directly to Washington. Finding that a determined effort would be made to force my nomination as governor, I wrote the following letter to prevent it:

"Treasury Department, } "Washington, May 15, 1879.} "My Dear Sir:--In view of the kindly interest manifested by political friends during my recent visit home, that I should be nominated as the Republican candidate for Governor of Ohio, I have given the subject the most careful consideration, and have come to the conclusion that I cannot, in my present situation, accept such a nomination if tendered.

"I am now engaged in a public duty which demands my constant attention and which can clearly better be completed by me than by anyone coming freshly into the office. To now accept the nomination for governor, though it is an honor I would otherwise highly prize and feel deeply grateful for, would be justly regarded as a abandonment of a trust important to the whole country, to promote my personal advancement. I earnestly hope, therefore, that the convention will not embarra.s.s me by a tender of a nomination which I would be obliged to decline.

"It may be that no such purpose will be manifested, but I write you so that if the convention should so incline, you may at once state why I cannot accept.

"Very truly yours, "John Sherman.

"General J. S. Robinson, Chairman Republican State Committee, Columbus, Ohio."

Charles Foster was nominated by the Republican convention in the latter part of May, and Thomas Ewing by the Democratic convention.

These nominations necessarily made prominent the financial questions of the time. After the close of the funding operations, I received from Mr. Blaine, as chairman of the Republican committee of Maine, the following invitation, which I accepted:

"Augusta, Me., July 3, 1879.

"Hon. John Sherman, Secy. of Treas.

"My Dear Sir:--Could you speak at Portland, Tuesday, July 23, and then during the same week at Augusta and Bangor--say 25th-27th?

Your Portland speech we should expect to have printed the next day, accurately from your own slips.

"Your two other speeches, hardly less important to us, might be made with less care and accuracy, that is, more on the order of the general stump speech.

"In your Portland speech I hope, however, you will talk on something more than the finance, making it, however, the leading and prominent topic--but giving a heavy hit at the conduct of the Democrats during the extra session.

"Sincerely, "James G. Blaine."

The election in the State of Maine preceding those of other states, great interest was taken in it, as the result there would have much influence in other parts of the country. That state in the previous year had faltered in support of the Republican party. In that year there were three candidates in the field for governor, the Republican, whose name I do not recall, the Democratic, Garcelon, for hard money, and the Greenback, Smith, under the lead of Solon Chase, an alleged lunatic in favor of fiat money, the repeal of the resumption law, and the enactment of an eight-hour law. Smith received about 40,000 votes, Garcelon about 28,000, and the Republican candidate about 54,000. Many Republicans either did not vote or voted the Democratic or Greenback ticket. By the const.i.tution of that state a majority of all the votes cast is required to elect a governor, and in case of failure the house of representatives of the state proceeds to ballot for choice. The names are then sent to the senate for the action of that body. The result was the election of Garcelon, the Democratic candidate.

This was due to a strong feeling then prevailing in favor of irredeemable or fiat money, and to some discontent among Republicans with the liberal measures adopted by President Hayes to secure peace and quiet in the south, especially the recognition of Hampton as Governor of South Carolina and of Nichols as Governor of Louisiana.

I thought it important to turn the issues of the campaign to the financial measures accomplished by the Republican party, and therefore prepared with some care a speech to be delivered at Portland, and confined mainly to this subject. This speech was made on the 23rd of July, 1879. I regard it as the best statement of the financial question made by me in that canva.s.s. In it I stated fully the action of the administration in respect to the resumption of specie payments, and the refunding of the public debt. The people of Maine had been greatly divided upon these measures. The Greenback party was opposed to the effort to advance the United States note to the value of coin which it represented, but wished to make it depend upon some imaginary value given to it by law. I said the people of Maine would have to choose between those who strictly sought to preserve the national faith, and to maintain the greenback at par with coin, and those who, with utter disregard of the public faith, wished to restore the old state of affairs, when the greenback could only be pa.s.sed at a discount, and could neither be received for customs duties, nor be paid upon the public debt.

The Greenback party had embodied in their platform the following dogmas:

"The general government should issue an ample volume of full legal tender currency to meet the business needs of the country, and to promptly pay all of its debts."

"The national banking system should be immediately abolished."

"We demand the immediate calling-in and payment of all United States bonds in full legal tender money."

One of the Members of Congress from the State of Maine, Hon. G. W.

Ladd, was reported to have paid his attention to me, in a speech in Portland, in the following language:

"Mr. Sherman has sold one hundred and ninety millions of four per cent. bonds in one day to bloodsuckers who were choking the country, and he should be impeached."

In closing my speech I said:

"It is to support such dogmas, my Republican friends, that we are invited to desert the great party to which we belong. It may be that the Republican party has made in the last twenty years some mistakes. It may not always have come up to your aspirations.

Sometimes power may have been abused. To err is human; but where it has erred it has always been on the side of liberty and justice.

It led our country in the great struggle for union and nationality, which more than all else tended to make it great and powerful. It has always taken side with the poor and the feeble. It emanc.i.p.ated a whole race, and has invested them with liberty and all the rights of citizenship. It never robbed the ballot box. It has never deprived any cla.s.s of people, for any cause, of the elective franchise. It maintains the supremacy of the national government on all national affairs, while observing and protecting the rights of the states. It has tried to secure the equality of all citizens before the law. It opposes all distinctions among men, whether white or black, native or naturalized. It invites them all to partake of equal privileges, and secures them an equal chance in life. It has secured, for the first time in our history, the rights of a naturalized citizen to protection against claims of military duty in his native country. It prescribes no religious test.

While it respects religion for its beneficial influence upon civil society, it recognizes the right of each individual to worship G.o.d according to the dictates of his own conscience, without prejudice or interference. It supports free common schools as the basis of republican inst.i.tutions. It has done more than any party that ever existed to provide lands for the landless. It devised and enacted the homestead law, and has constantly extended this policy, so that all citizens, native and naturalized, may enjoy, without cost, limited portions of this public land. It protects American labor.

It is in favor of American industry. It seeks to diversity productions. It has steadily pursued, as an object of national importance, the development of our commerce on inland waters and on the high seas. It has protected our flag on every sea; not the stars and bars, not the flag of a state, but the stars and stripes of the Union. It seeks to establish in this republic of ours a great, strong, free government of free men. It would, with frankness and sincerity, without malice or hate, extend the right hand of fellowship and fraternity to those who lately were at war with us, aid them in making fruitful their waste places and in developing their immense resources, if only they would allow the poor and ignorant men among them the benefits conferred by the const.i.tution and the laws. No hand of oppression rests upon them. No bayonet points to them except in their political imaginings.

"We would gladly fraternize with them if they would allow us, and have but one creed--the const.i.tution and laws of our country, to be executed and enforced by our country, and for the equal benefit of all our countrymen. If they will not accept this, but will keep up sectionalism, maintain the solid south upon the basis of the principles of the Confederate states, we must prepare to stand together as the loyal north, true to the Union, true to liberty, and faithful to every national obligation. I appeal to every man who ever, at any time, belonged to the Republican party, to every man who supported his country in its time of danger, to every lover of liberty regulated by law, and every intelligent Democrat who can see with us the evil tendencies of the dogmas I have commented upon, to join us in reforming all that is evil, all the abuses of the past, and in developing the principles and policies which in twenty years have done so much to strengthen our government, to consolidate our inst.i.tutions, and to excite the respect and admiration of mankind."

I made similar speeches at Lewiston, Augusta, Waterville and Bangor.

General Sherman's estimate of my speech at Portland, in reply to an inquiry, is characteristic of him, viz:

"General, your brother, Secretary Sherman, seems to be doing some telling work just now in the State of Maine; in fact, it is conceded that his recent financial triumphs have made him a power."

"Well, yes, I think John's doing right well. He made a good speech at Portland, one that seemed to me carefully prepared. I think he answered his critics quite conclusively, but if I were in John's place I would now save my breath and make no more speeches, but simply say in reply to other invitations, 'Read my Portland speech,'

because whatever other efforts he may make during the campaign must be more or less a rehash of that."

In the canva.s.s that followed in Maine but little attention was paid to the sectional question, and the Republican party gained a complete victory.

About the middle of August the business of the treasury department, being confined to routine duties, was left under the management of a.s.sistant Secretary John B. Hawley. I determined to spend the remainder of the month in the campaign in Ohio, then actively progressing, but confined mainly to the issue between the inflation of paper money and the solid rock of specie payments. I made my first speech in that canva.s.s at Steubenville on the 21st of August.

The meeting was a very large one. Every available seat was occupied by an intelligent audience, and the aisles and corridors were filled with people sitting or standing. I opened my speech as follows:

"I am happy to be again among the people of Ohio, to whom I am under the highest obligations of duty and grat.i.tude, and especially to be here in this good county of Jefferson, whose representatives have thrice honored me by their vote when a candidate for the Senate of the United States. I cheerfully come to speak on matters in which you, as well as the whole people of the United States, have a common interest; and I will best meet your wishes by stating, in a plain, frank way, such facts and reasons as appear to me to justify the support you have uniformly given to the Republican party since its organization in 1854, and to present adequate grounds for supporting it now.

"Three parties present candidates to the people of Ohio for the highest offices of the state. It will not be necessary or just for me to arraign the personal character, standing, or services of either of the candidates on either of these tickets. They are all respected citizens, and each would, no doubt, if elected, satisfactorily perform the duties of the office for which he is nominated.

"But the issues involved are far more important than the candidates.

I a.s.sure you that upon the election in Ohio depend questions of public policy which touch upon the framework of our government and affect the interests of every citizen of the United States. The same old questions about which we disputed before the war, and during the war, and since the war, are as clearly involved in this campaign as they were when Lincoln was elected, or when Grant was fighting the battles of his country in the Wilderness.

"There are also financial questions involved in this contest. The Republican party proposed, maintained, and executed the resumption act as the best remedy for the evils that followed the panic of 1873. Under that act it has brought about the resumption of specie payments. By its policy all forms of money are equal to and redeemable in coin. It has reduced the interest on all the public debt that is now redeemable. It has maintained and advanced the public credit. It now declares its purpose to hold fast to what it has done, to keep and maintain every dollar of paper money in circulation as of equal value to the best coin issued from the mint, and as soon as possible to complete the work of reducing interest on all the public debt to four per cent. or less.

"The Greenback party not only denounces all we have done, but proposes to reverse it by the issue of an almost unlimited amount of irredeemable paper money, to destroy the system of free national banks, and to call in and pay off all the United States bonds with irredeemable money.

"The Democratic party of Ohio, both in its platform and by its candidates, supports more or less all of these dogmas; but it does so not as a matter of principle, but for political power. Its main object is, by any sort of alliance on any real or pretended popular issue, to gain strength enough to unite with the solid south, so that it may restore to power, in all departments of the national government, the very same doctrines that led to the Civil War, and the very men who waged it against the Union. To obtain political power, the democracy seek, by party discipline, to compel their members to abandon the old and cherished principles of their party of having a sound currency redeemable in coin. For this, they overthrew Governor Bishop; for this, they propose to reopen all the wild and visionary schemes of inflation which have been twice rejected by the people of Ohio. Our contest with them is not only on financial questions, but upon the old and broad question of the power and duty of the national government to enforce the const.i.tution and laws of the United States in every state and territory, whether in favor of or against any citizen of the United States.

"Let us first take up these financial questions, and in charity and kindness, and with due deference to opposing opinions, endeavor to get at the right, if we can.

"The great body of all parties are interested in and desirous of promoting the public good. If they could only hear both sides fairly stated, there would be less heat and bitterness in political contests, and more independent voting."

I then proceeded with a full discussion of the financial questions, referring especially to the speeches made by General Ewing, with whose opinions I was conversant. I closed with a brief discussion of the southern question, and especially the nullification of the election laws in the southern states. This speech was the best of many made by me in different parts of the state. I was engaged in the canva.s.s in Ohio for two weeks afterward, during which I visited my home at Mansfield.

In traversing the state I was surprised at the remarkable change in the condition of business and the feelings of the people, and at the evidences of prosperity not only in the workshops but on the farms. It was jokingly said that the revival of industries and peace and happiness was a shrewd political trick of the Republicans to carry the state. As I rode through the country I saw for miles and miles luxuriant crops of thousands of acres of wheat, corn, oats and barley. It was said that this was merely a part of the campaign strategy of the Republicans, that really the people were very poor and miserable and on the verge of starvation.

This was the burden of the speeches of General Ewing, who attributed the miseries of the people to my "wicked financial policy," and said that I was given over to the clutches of the money power and stripped and robbed the people of Ohio for the benefit of the "bloated bondholders."

While General Ewing was fighting in the shadows of the past, caused by the panic of 1873, a revolution had taken place, and he who entered into the canva.s.s with the hope that the cry of distress would aid him in his ambition to be governor, must have been greatly discouraged by the evidences of prosperity all around him. I found in my home at Mansfield that business was prosperous, the workshops were in full blast, and smoke was issuing from the chimney of every establishment in the place.