C46 



SHERMAN, JOHN. 



commendation of a book published by Hinton 

 K. Helper, entitled The Impending Crisis of the 

 South How to Meet It, the sentiments of which 

 were declared by many Democrats to be hostile 

 to the peace and tranquillity of the country. Mr. 

 Sherman would not retract his approval of the 

 work, and so the prize fell to other hands, but he 

 was made chairman of the Committee on Ways 

 and Means, the highest place in the gift of the 

 .Speaker. 



The next session there was an imperative need 

 of more revenue, and a bill for that purpose was 

 introduced by Mr. Morrill, of the committee, who 

 had been largely instrumental in its preparation, 

 but the opponents of the measure succeeded in 

 getting it so loaded down with amendments that 

 Mr. Morrill became disgusted and was willing 

 to abandon it. At the instance of the committee, 

 Mr. Sherman took charge of the bill, and by his 

 Miprrior knowledge of the rules and by masterly 

 tact he forced it through the House in form sub- 

 stantially as originally reported from the com- 

 mittee, much to the chagrin of its opponents. 

 The bill became a law practically unchanged. It 

 was distinctively a bill for protection, and along 

 its lines all subsequent protective tariff measures 

 have been formed. 



In 18(51 Mr. Sherman entered the Senate, and 

 was accorded second place on the Finance Com- 

 mittee at the solicitation of Senator Fessenden, its 

 chairman, a most unusual recognition, as a new 

 member, if placed at all on an important com- 

 mittee, is generally assigned to the bottom of 

 the list. 



The country was now in the throes of civil 

 war, and, pressed for means to carry it on, the 

 House passed a bill providing, among other meas- 

 ures, for the issue by the Government of $150,- 

 000,000 of notes for circulation payable to bearer, 

 but at no fixed time, and made a legal tender for 

 all debts, public and private. When the bill 

 reached the Senate Finance Committee it met 

 with much opposition, Mr. Fessenden being bit- 

 terly opposed to the legal-tender feature. At the 

 suggestion of Mr. Sherman the bill was amended 

 by excepting from the legal-tender property of 

 the notes the payment of customs dues and in- 

 terest on the public debt, and, thus amended, the 

 bill became a law the most far-reaching measure 

 ever entered upon the pages of our national stat- 

 utes, touching as it did every business interest 

 and the pocket of every individual in the country. 

 The " legal tenders " are now popular notes, serv- 

 ing well the purpose of circulation; but without 

 the Sherman amendment not a prop would have 

 been left to support the nation's credit. 



A year later Mr. Sherman introduced and car- 

 ried through a measure for the creation of na- 

 tional banks, the notes of which were to be se- 

 cured by a collateral deposit of public bonds. 

 This measure had been twice recommended by 

 the Secretary of the Treasury in his annual re- 

 ports, but had not been favorably received. These 

 notes were designed to supplant the State bank 

 issues, which were then in a most unhappy con- 

 dition. Out of 1,230 State banks issuing notes, 

 140 were broken. 2:!4 closed, and 131 worthless. 

 At the same time there were in circulation 3,000 

 kinds of altered and 1,700 varieties of spurious 

 notes, 4(iO of imitations, and more than 700 of 

 other kinds more or less fraudulent. The sub- 

 utitution of national bank notes, as the measure 

 provided, in place of the obnoxious State bank 

 notes which were then in circulation, marks an 

 epoch in the country's history a putting off of 

 the old and a putting on of the new in the growth 

 of the nation. 



When the civil war was at an end, the prob- 

 lem of restoring the seceded States to their former 

 places in the Union demanded solution. Congress, 

 owing to diversity of views among its members, 

 drifted along aimlessly. Presidents Lincoln and 

 Johnson essayed reconstruction by proclamation, 

 extending their invitations to the white men 

 only. Several States had reorganized thereunder 

 and were awaiting congressional recognition 

 when the ill treatment of the freedmen and the 

 outrages of the Ku-klux Klan, in several sections 

 of the South, aroused the North and united the 

 Republican party. On Feb. G, 18(57, Mr. Stevens, 

 of the House, reported a bill which set forth that 

 the rebel State governments were instituted 

 without the authority of Congress and the sanc- 

 tion of the people; that these pretended govern- 

 ments afforded no protection to life, liberty, or 

 property; that they encouraged lawlessness and 

 crime, and that peace and order ought to be 

 enforced until loyal State governments could be 

 legally established, and therefore the bill made 

 provision for strengthening the administration 

 of the military government existing throughout 

 the seceded States. After considerable debate the 

 bill unchanged passed the House. In the Senate 

 the measure was bitterly denounced as a declara- 

 tion of war against the seceded States, and sev- 

 eral amendments were offered but were voted 

 down. Mr. Sherman, after consulting with a few 

 of his friends, brought forward an amendment, 

 which he offered as section 5 to the bill under 

 consideration, saying in explanation: "In regard 

 to the fifth section, which is the main and ma- 

 terial feature of this bill, I think it is right that 

 the Congress of the United States, before its ad- 

 journment, should designate some way by which 

 the Southern States may reorganize loyal Sta<e 

 governments in harmony with the Constitution 

 and laws of the United States and the sentimen 

 of the people, and find their way back to the 

 halls. My own judgment is that that fifth sec 

 tion will point out a clear, easy, and right way 

 for these States to be restored to their full powe 

 in the Government. All that it demands of th 

 people of the Southern States is to extend t 

 all their male citizens, without distinction of race 

 or color, the elective franchise." The discussion 

 that followed was extremely acrimonious, and it 

 was freely predicted that the enactment of the 

 bill into a law would be the death knell of the 

 Republican party. The bill, however, carrying 

 Mr. Sherman's amendment, passed the Senate, 

 and became a law unchanged, over the veto of 

 President Johnson, March 2, 1867. Under the p 

 vision of its fifth section, ten States were restored 

 to the Union as anticipated by Mr. Sherman, and 

 suffrage was given to 000,000 freedmen. 



While visiting Paris in 1867, Mr. Sherman re- 

 ceived at his hotel a request from the Monetary 

 Conference, then in session in that city, for an 

 expression of his views on a proposition so to 

 change the weight of the English sovereign and 

 our gold dollar as to make them multiples in 

 value of the French gold franc. Mr. Sherman 

 immediately replied, approving, and incidentally 

 discussing the theory of a double standard, ex- 

 posing in strong terms what he believed to be 

 its fallacy. Later he made a report from liis 

 committee on the project that had engaged tin 

 attention of the conference, in which he renewed 

 his objections to any attempts at operating a 

 double standard, assuming that the gold unit, 

 which had been in use since IS.'U. would continue 

 indefinitely as the standard of this country. The 

 Senate was favorable to chaTiging the- weight of 

 our gold dollar as proposed, but England objected 





