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John Sherman (May 10, 1823October 22, 1900) 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.
Born in Lancaster, Ohio, Sherman later moved to Mansfield, Ohio, where he began a law career before entering politics. He was the younger brother of Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, with whom he had a close relationship. Initially a Whig, Sherman was among those anti-slavery activists who formed what became the Republican Party. He served three terms in the House of Representatives. As a member of the House, Sherman traveled to Kansas to investigate Bleeding Kansas between pro- and anti-slavery partisans there. He rose in party leadership and was nearly elected Speaker in 1859. Sherman was elected to the Senate in 1861. As a senator, he was a leader in financial matters, helping to redesign the United States' monetary system to meet the needs of a nation torn apart by civil war. He also served as the Chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee during his 32 years in the Senate. After the war, he worked to produce legislation that would restore the nation's credit abroad and produce a stable, gold-backed currency at home.
Serving as Secretary of the Treasury in the administration of Rutherford B. Hayes, Sherman continued his efforts for financial stability and solvency, overseeing an end to wartime inflationary measures and a return to gold-backed money. He returned to the Senate after his term expired, serving there for a further sixteen years. During that time he continued his work on financial legislation, as well as writing and debating laws on immigration, Competition law, and the regulation of interstate commerce. Sherman was the principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which was signed into law by President Benjamin Harrison in 1890. In 1897, President William McKinley appointed him Secretary of State. Failing health and declining faculties made him unable to handle the burdens of the job, and he retired in 1898 at the start of the Spanish–American War. Sherman died at his home in Washington, D.C., in 1900 at age 77.
Sherman's father died suddenly in 1829, leaving his mother to care for 11 children. Several of the oldest children, including Sherman's older brother William Tecumseh Sherman, were fostered with nearby relatives, but John and his brother Hoyt Sherman stayed with their mother in Lancaster until 1831. In that year, Sherman's father's cousin (also named John Sherman) took Sherman into his home in Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he enrolled in school. The elder John Sherman intended for his namesake to study there until he was ready to enroll at nearby Kenyon College, but Sherman disliked school and was, in his own words, "a troublesome boy". In 1835, he returned to his mother's home in Lancaster. Sherman continued his education there at a local academy where, after being briefly expelled for punching a teacher, he studied for two years.
In 1837, Sherman left school and found a job as a junior surveyor on construction of improvements to the Muskingum River. Because he had obtained the job through Whig Party spoils system, the election of a Democratic governor in 1838 meant that Sherman and the rest of his surveying crew were discharged from their jobs in June 1839. The following year, he moved to Mansfield to reading law in the office of his older brother, Charles Taylor Sherman. He was admitted to the bar in 1844 and joined his brother's firm. Sherman quickly became successful at the practice of law, and by 1847 had accumulated property worth $10,000 (~$ in ) and was a partner in several local businesses. By that time, Sherman and his brother Charles were able to support their mother and two unmarried sisters, who now moved to a house Sherman purchased in Mansfield. In 1848, Sherman married Margaret Cecilia Stewart, the daughter of a local judge. The couple never had any biological children, but adopted a daughter, Mary, in 1864.
Around the same time, Sherman began to take a larger role in politics. In 1844, he addressed a political rally on behalf of the Whig candidate for president that year, Henry Clay. Four years later, Sherman was a delegate to the Whig National Convention where the eventual winner Zachary Taylor was nominated. As with most conservative Whigs, Sherman supported the Compromise of 1850 as the best solution to the growing sectional divide. In 1852, Sherman was again a delegate to the Whig National Convention, where he supported the eventual nominee, Winfield Scott, against rivals Daniel Webster and incumbent Millard Fillmore, who had become president following Taylor's death.
Sherman spent two months in the territory and was the primary author of the 1,188-page report filed on conditions there when they returned in April 1856. The report explained what anti-administration members already feared: that the principle of local control was being seriously undermined by the Border Ruffian who, while not intending to settle there, used violence to coerce the Kansans to elect pro-slavery members to the territorial legislature. The House took no action on the reports, but they were widely distributed as campaign documents. That July, Sherman proposed an amendment to an army appropriation act to bar use of federal troops to enforce the acts of the Kansas territorial legislature, which many now viewed as an illegitimate body. The amendment narrowly passed the House, but was removed by the Senate; the House ultimately agreed to the change. In spite of this defeat, however, Sherman had achieved considerable prominence for a freshman representative.
Sherman's second term also saw his first speeches in Congress on the country's financial situation, which had been harmed by the Panic of 1857. Citing the need to pare unnecessary expenditures in light of diminished revenue, Sherman especially criticized Southern senators for adding appropriations to the House's bills. His speech attracted attention and was the start of Sherman's focus on financial matters, which would continue throughout his long political career.
Pennington assigned Sherman to serve as chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, where he spent much of his time on appropriations bills, while cooperating with his colleague Justin Smith Morrill on the passage of what became known as the Morrill Tariff. The Morrill Tariff raised duties on imports to close the deficit that had resulted from falling revenues. It also had the effect of encouraging domestic industries, which appealed to the former Whigs in the Republican party. Sherman spoke in favor of the bill, and it passed the House by a vote of 105 to 64. The tariff bill would likely have died in the Senate, but the withdrawal of Southern members at the start of the Civil War allowed the rump legislature Senate to pass the bill in the 36th Congress final session, and President Buchanan signed it into law in February 1861. Likewise, Sherman supported a bill admitting Kansas as a free state that passed in 1861.
Sherman was renominated for Congress in 1860 and was active in Abraham Lincoln's campaign for president, giving speeches on his behalf in several states. Both were elected, with Sherman defeating his opponent, Barnabas Burns, by 2,864 votes. He returned to Washington for the lame duck session of the 36th Congress. By February 1861, seven states had reacted to Lincoln's election by seceding from the Union. In response, Congress passed a constitutional amendment proposed by Representative Thomas Corwin of Ohio. Known today as the Corwin Amendment, it was an attempt to forge a compromise to keep the remaining slave states in the Union and entice the seceded states to return. Corwin's legislation would have preserved the status quo on slavery and prohibited any future amendment granting Congress power to interfere with slavery in the states. Sherman voted for the amendment, which passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. Few states ratified it, and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, outlawing slavery, rendered the compromise measure moot.
When Congress returned to Washington in December 1861, Sherman and the Finance Committee continued their attempts to fix the deepening financial crisis caused by the war. The financial situation had continued to worsen, resulting that month in banks suspending specie payments—that is, they refused to redeem their for gold. Gold began to disappear from circulation. With the 500,000 soldiers in the field, the government was spending the then-unheard-of sum of $2 million per day. Sherman understood that "a radical change in existing laws relating to our currency must be made, or ... the destruction of the Union would be unavoidable ..." Secretary Chase agreed and proposed that the Treasury Department issue United States Notes that were redeemable not in specie but in 6% government bonds. The bills would be "lawful money and a legal tender in the payment of all debts". Nothing but gold and silver coin had ever been legal tender in the United States, but Congress yielded to the wartime necessities, and the resulting First Legal Tender Act passed both the House and the Senate. The Act limited the notes (later known as "greenbacks") to $150 million, but two subsequent Legal Tender Acts that year expanded the limit to $450 million. The idea of making paper money legal tender was controversial, and William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was among many who opposed the proposal. Sherman disagreed and spoke in favor of the idea. He defended his position as necessary in his memoirs, saying "from the passage of the legal tender act, by which means were provided for utilizing the wealth of the country in the suppression of the rebellion, the tide of war turned in our favor".
Reform of the nation's financial system continued in 1863 with the passage of the National Banking Act of 1863. This Act, first proposed by Chase in 1861 and introduced by Sherman two years later, established a series of nationally chartered private banks that would issue banknotes in coordination with the Treasury, replacing (though not completely) the then in existence. Although the immediate purpose was to fund the war, the National Bank Act was intended to be permanent, and remained the law until 1913. A 10% tax on state banknotes passed in 1865 to encourage the shift to a national bank system. Sherman agreed with Chase wholeheartedly and hoped that state banking would be eliminated. Sherman believed the state-by-state system of regulation was disorderly and unable to facilitate the level of borrowing a modern nation might require. He also believed the state banks were unconstitutional. Not all Republicans shared Sherman's views, and when the Act eventually passed the Senate, it was by a narrow 23–21 vote. Lincoln signed the bill into law on February 25, 1863.
When the session ended, Sherman campaigned in Indiana and Ohio for Lincoln's reelection. In 1865, he attended Lincoln's second inauguration, then traveled to Savannah, Georgia to meet with his brother William, who had arrived there after his army's march to the sea. Sherman returned home to Mansfield in April, where he learned of Lincoln's assassination just days after the Confederate surrender. He was again in Washington for the Grand Review of the Armies and then returned home until December, when the 39th Congress assembled. There had been no special session that summer, and President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's successor, had taken the lead on Reconstruction of the conquered South, to the consternation of many in Congress. Sherman and Johnson had been friendly, and some observers hoped that Sherman could serve as a liaison between Johnson and the party's "Radical" wing. By February 1866, however, Johnson was publicly attacking these Radical Republicans, who demanded harsh punishment of the rebels and federal action to assist the freedmen. The following month Johnson vetoed the proposed Civil Rights Act of 1866, which had passed Congress with overwhelming numbers. Sherman joined in overturning Johnson's veto. That same year, Sherman voted for the Fourteenth Amendment, which guaranteed equal protection of the laws to the freedmen. It became law in 1868.
By then, Johnson had made himself the enemy of most Republicans in Congress, including Sherman. Sherman, a moderate, took the side of the Radicals in voting for the Tenure of Office Act, which passed over Johnson's veto in 1867—but in debating the First Reconstruction Act, he argued against disenfranchising Southern men who had participated in the rebellion. The latter bill, amended to remove that provision, also passed over Johnson's veto. The continued conflict between Johnson and Congress culminated in Johnson's impeachment by the House in 1868. After a trial in the Senate, Sherman voted to convict, but the total vote was one short of the required two-thirds majority, and Johnson continued in office. Writing later, Sherman said that although he "liked the President personally and harbored against him none of the prejudice and animosity of some others," he believed Johnson had violated the Tenure of Office Act and accordingly voted to remove him from office.
With Ulysses S. Grant elected to the presidency in 1868, Congress had a more willing partner in Reconstruction. The 40th Congress's lame duck session passed the Fifteenth Amendment, which guaranteed that the right to vote could not be restricted because of race; Sherman joined the two-thirds majority that voted for its passage. The 41st Congress passed the Enforcement Act of 1870 to enforce its civil rights Amendments among a hostile Southern population. That Act, written by John Bingham of Ohio to mirror the Fourteenth Amendment, created penalties for violating another person's constitutional rights. The next year, Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which strengthened the Enforcement Act by allowing federal trials and federal troops to be used. Sherman voted in favor of both Acts, which had Grant's support.
The Ohio legislature reelected Sherman to another six-year term that year, and when (after a three-month vacation in Europe) he resumed his seat he again turned to the greenback question. Public support for greenbacks had grown, especially among businesspeople who thought withdrawal would lead to lower prices. When a bill passed the House suspending the authority to retire greenbacks under the Contraction Act, Sherman supported it in the Senate. It passed the Senate 33–4, and became law in 1868.
In the next Congress, among the first bills to pass the house was the Public Credit Act of 1869, which would require the government to pay bondholders in gold, not greenbacks. The 1868 election campaign had seen the Democrats proposing to repay the bondholders (mostly supporters of the Union war effort) in paper; Republicans favored gold, as the bonds had been purchased with gold. Sherman agreed with his fellow Republicans and voted with them to pass the bill 42–13. Sherman continued to favor wider circulation of the greenback when he voted for the Currency Act of 1870, which authorized an additional $54 million in United States Notes. Sherman was also involved in debate over the Funding Act of 1870. The Funding Act, which Sherman called "the most important financial measure of that Congress," refunded the national debt. The bill as Sherman wrote it authorized $1.2 billion of low-interest rate bonds to be used to purchase the high-rate bonds issued during the war, to take advantage of the lower borrowing costs brought about by the peace and security that followed the Union victory. The Act was the subject of considerable debate over the exact rates and amounts, but once the differences were ironed out, it passed by large majorities in both houses. While Sherman was unhappy with the compromises (especially the extension of the bonds' term to 30 years, which he believed too long), he saw the bill as an improvement over the existing conditions and urged its passage.
Grant's Treasury Secretary, George S. Boutwell, sent Sherman (who was by now Senate Finance Committee Chairman) a draft of what would become the Coinage Act of 1873. The list of legal coins duplicated that of the previous coinage act, leaving off only the silver dollar and two smaller coins. The rationale given in the Treasury report accompanying the draft bill was that to mint a gold dollar and a silver dollar with different intrinsic values was problematic; as the silver dollar did not circulate and the gold did, it made sense to drop the unused coin. Opponents of the bill would later call this omission the "Crime of '73," and would mean it quite literally, circulating tales of widespread bribery of Congressmen by foreign agents. Sherman emphasized in his memoirs that the bill was openly debated for several years and passed both Houses with overwhelming support and that, given the continued circulation of smaller silver coins at the same 16:1 ratio, nothing had been "demonetized," as his opponents claimed. Silver was still legal tender, but only for sums up to five dollars. On the other hand, later scholars have suggested that Sherman and others wished to demonetize silver for years and move the country onto a gold standard of currency—not for some corrupt gain, but because they believed it was the path to a strong, secure currency.
In switching to what was essentially a gold standard, the United States joined a host of nations around the world that based their currencies on gold alone. But in doing so, these nations exacerbated the demand for gold as opposed to silver which, combined with more silver being mined, drove the cost of gold up and silver down. The result was not apparent immediately after the Coinage Act's passage, but by 1879 the ratio between the price of gold and that of silver had risen from 16.4:1 to 18.4:1; by 1896 it was 30:1. The ultimate effect was more expensive gold, which meant lower prices and deflation for other goods. The deflation made the effects of the Panic of 1873 worse, making it more expensive for debtors to pay debts they had contracted when currency was less valuable. Farmers and laborers, especially, clamored for the return of coinage in both metals, believing the increased money supply would restore wages and property values, and the divide between pro- and anti-silver forces grew in the decades to come. Writing in 1895, Sherman defended the bill, saying that, barring some international agreement to switch the entire world to a bimetallism, the United States dollar should remain a gold-backed currency.
While Sherman stood against printing additional greenbacks, as late as 1872 he remained a proponent of keeping existing greenbacks backed by bonds in circulation. Over the next two years, Sherman worked to develop what became the Specie Payment Resumption Act. The Act was a compromise. It required gradual reduction of the maximum value of greenbacks allowed to circulate to $300 million (~$ in ) and, while earlier drafts had allowed the Treasury the choice between paying in bonds or coin, the final version of the Act required payment in specie, starting in 1879. The bill passed on a party-line vote in the lame duck session of the 43rd Congress, and President Grant signed it into law on January 14, 1875.
Sherman, by this time thoroughly displeased with Grant and his administration, nonetheless took up the call in the name of party loyalty, joining James A. Garfield, Stanley Matthews, and other Republican politicians in Louisiana a few days later. The Democrats likewise sent their politicos, and the two sides met to observe the elections return board arrive at its decision that Hayes should be awarded their state's electoral votes. This ended Sherman's direct role in the matter, and he returned to Washington, but the dispute carried over until a bipartisan election commission was convened in the capital. A few days before Grant's term would end, the commission narrowly decided in Hayes's favor, and he became the 19th President of the United States.
Sherman pressured his friends in the Senate to defeat the bill, or to limit it to production of a larger silver dollar, which would actually be worth 1/16th its weight in gold. These efforts were unsuccessful, but Allison's amendment made the bill less financially risky. Sherman thought Hayes should sign the amended bill but did not press the matter, and the President vetoed it. "In view of the strong public sentiment in favor of the free coinage of the silver dollar", he later wrote, "I thought it better to make no objections to the passage of the bill, but I did not care to antagonize the wishes of the President." Congress overrode Hayes's veto and the bill became law. The effects of the Bland–Allison Act were limited: the premium on gold over silver continued to grow, and financial conditions in the country continued to improve.
Hayes issued an executive order that forbade federal office holders from being required to make campaign contributions or otherwise taking part in party politics. Chester A. Arthur, the Collector of the Port of New York, and his subordinates Alonzo B. Cornell and George H. Sharpe, all Conkling supporters, refused to obey the president's order. Sherman agreed with Hayes that the three had to resign, but he made clear in a letter to Arthur that he had no personal grudge against the Collector. In September 1877, Hayes demanded the three men's resignations, which they refused to give. He submitted appointments to the Senate for confirmation as their replacements but the Senate's Commerce Committee, which Conkling chaired, voted unanimously to reject the nominees.
During a congressional recess in July 1878, Hayes finally sacked Arthur and Cornell (Sharpe's term had expired) and appointed replacements. When Congress reconvened, Sherman pressured his former Senate colleagues to confirm the President's replacement nominees, which they did after considerable debate. Jay and other reformers criticized Sherman the next year when he traveled to New York to speak on Cornell's behalf in his campaign for governor of New York. Sherman replied that it was important that the Republican party win the election there, despite their intra-party differences. His friendliness may also have related, as Arthur's biographer Thomas C. Reeves suggests, to a desire to keep Conkling's New York machine friendly to him as the 1880 presidential election approached.
After the other candidates had been nominated, the first ballot showed Grant leading with 304 votes and Blaine in second with 284; Sherman's 93 placed him in a distant third, and no candidate had the required majority of 379. Sherman's delegates could swing the nomination to either Grant or Blaine, but he refused to release them through twenty-eight ballots in the hope that the anti-Grant forces would desert Blaine and flock to him. By the end of the first day, it was clear that neither Grant nor Blaine could muster a majority; a compromise candidate would be necessary. Sherman held out hope that he would be that compromise candidate, but while his vote tally reached as high as 120, he never commanded even all of Ohio's delegates. His divided home-state support was likely fatal to his cause, as Blaine delegates, searching for a new champion, did not think Sherman would make a popular candidate. After several days of balloting, Blaine's men found their compromise candidate, but instead of Sherman they shifted their votes to his fellow Ohioan, Garfield. By the thirty-sixth ballot, Garfield had 399 votes, enough for victory.
Sherman was respected among his fellow Republicans for his intelligence and hard work, but there were always doubts about his potential as a national candidate. As one author described him, Sherman was "thin as a rail, over six feet high, with close cropped beard and possessed of bad teeth and a divine laugh, when he laughs". His public speeches were adequate and informative, but never "of a sort to arouse a warm feeling for John Sherman, the man." Unlike Blaine or Conkling, Sherman "communicated no colorful personality, no magnetic current". His nickname, "the Ohio Icicle," deserved or not, hindered his presidential ambitions.
Garfield placated the pro-Grant faction by endorsing Chester A. Arthur as nominee for Vice President. Despite his good relations with Arthur in 1879, Sherman thought the choice a bad one: "The nomination of Arthur is a ridiculous burlesque," he wrote in a letter to a friend, "and I am afraid was inspired by a desire to defeat the ticket ... His nomination attaches to the ticket all the odium of machine politics, and will greatly endanger the success of Garfield." He was nearly correct, as Garfield eked out a narrow victory over the Democratic nominee Winfield Scott Hancock. Sherman continued at the Treasury for the rest of Hayes's term, leaving office March 3, 1881.
Garfield's assassination by an office-seeker amplified the public demand for civil service reform. Both Democratic and Republican leaders realized that they could attract the votes of reformers by turning against the spoils system, and by 1882 a bipartisan effort began in favor of reform. In the previous Congress, Sherman's fellow Ohio Senator, Democrat George H. Pendleton, had introduced legislation that required selection of civil servants based on merit as determined by an examination, but Congress declined to act on it right away. Republicans lost seats in the 1882 congressional elections, in which Democrats campaigned on the reform issue, and in the lame duck session were more amenable to civil service reform. Sherman spoke in favor of merit selection and against removing employees from office without cause. He was against the idea that civil servants should have unlimited terms of office but believed that efficiency, not political activity, should determine an employee's length of service. Sherman voted in favor of Pendleton's bill, and the Senate approved it 38–5. The House concurred by a vote of 155–47. Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act into law on January 16, 1883.
In 1886, the Ohio legislature elected Sherman to a fifth term but, before long, he was considering another run for the presidency. To broaden his national image, he traveled to Nashville to give a speech defending Republican principles. He encouraged fairness in the treatment of black Americans and denounced their mistreatment at the hands of the "Redeemers" Southern state governments. The tour had its effect, and Sherman's hopes were high. His old friend, ex-President Hayes, thought him the best candidate. The early favorite for the nomination was again Blaine, but after Blaine wrote several letters denying any interest in the nomination, his supporters divided among other candidates, including Sherman. With no clear consensus going into the 1888 convention, delegates divided their support among an unusual number of . Daniel H. Hastings of Pennsylvania placed Sherman's name in nomination, seconded by Foraker (who was, by then, Governor of Ohio). Sherman, at last, had a unified Ohio delegation behind him and led on the first ballot with 229 votes—more than double his nearest competitor, but well short of the 416 needed for nomination. Walter Q. Gresham of Indiana was in second place with 111, followed by Russell A. Alger of Michigan with 84. Sherman gained votes on the second ballot, but plateaued there; by the fifth ballot, it was clear that he would gain no more delegates. He refused to withdraw, but his supporters began to abandon him; by the eighth ballot, the delegates coalesced around Benjamin Harrison of Indiana and voted him the nomination. Sherman thought Harrison was a good candidate and bore him no ill will, but he did begrudge Alger, whom he believed "purchased the votes of many of the delegates from the southern states who had been instructed by their conventions to vote for me". A loyal Republican, Sherman gave speeches for Harrison in Ohio and Indiana and was pleased with his victory over Cleveland that November. After 1888, Sherman, aware that he would be seventy-three years old when the nomination was next open, resolved that from then on "no temptation of office will induce me to seek further political honors" and did not run for president again.
The bill passed the Senate by an overwhelming 52–1 vote and passed the House without dissent. President Harrison signed the bill into law on July 2, 1890. When Harrison signed the Act, he remarked, "John Sherman has fixed General Alger." Sherman was the prime mover in getting the bill passed and became "by far the most articulate spokesman for antitrust in Congress". The Act was later criticized for its simple language and lack of defined terms, but Sherman defended it, saying that it drew on common-law language and precedents. He also denied that the Act was anti-business at all, saying that it only opposed unfair business practices. Sherman emphasized that the Act aimed not at lawful competition, but at illegal combination. The later analysis was more generous: "The Sherman Act was as good an antitrust law as the Congress of 1890 could have devised."
Both Houses of Congress were majority-Republican, but their solutions differed. The House passed a bill in June 1890 requiring the government to purchase 4.5 million ounces of silver each month (in addition to the $2–4 million required to be coined under Bland–Allison). The Senate passed a bill by Republican Preston B. Plumb of Kansas for free coinage of silver at the legal (16:1) ratio. Sherman voted against Plumb's bill, but was appointed to the conference committee to produce a compromise bill that, now called the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, passed that July. The Treasury would buy 4.5 million ounces of silver and would issue Treasury Notes to pay for it, which would be redeemable in gold or silver. The law also provided that the Treasury could coin more silver dollars if the Secretary believed it necessary to redeem the new notes. Sherman thought the bill was the least harmful option. Harrison believed it would end the controversy, and he signed it into law. The effect of the bill, however, was the increased depletion of the nation's gold supply.
In 1893, a financial panic struck the stock market, and the nation soon faced an acute economic depression. The panic was worsened by the acute shortage of gold that resulted from the increased coinage of silver, and President Cleveland, who had replaced Harrison that March, called Congress into session and demanded repeal of the part of the Act requiring the government to purchase silver. The effects of the panic had driven more moderates to support repeal; even so, the silverites rallied their following at a convention in Chicago, and the House debated for fifteen weeks before passing the repeal by a considerable margin. In the Senate, the repeal of silver purchase was equally contentious, but Cleveland convinced enough Democrats to stand by him that they, along with eastern Republicans, formed a 48–37 majority. Sherman voted for repeal of "his" bill. After repeal, depletion of the Treasury's gold reserves continued, but at a lesser rate and subsequent bond issues replenished supplies of gold. Academic debate continues over the efficacy of the bond issues, but the consensus is that the repeal of the Silver Purchase Act was, at worst, unharmful and, at best, useful in restoring the nation's financial health.
Sherman became known as a "friend of England" in Washington DC. He frequently made reference to British history in his speeches. Sherman believed there was a lot America could learn from England as an example with respects to economic systems, railroads and governance, and he was fond of highlighting the English origins of American political thought. While a sitting senator, Sherman travelled to the United Kingdom where he met with William Ewart Gladstone who at the time was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He also met with John Bright and attended a speech given by Benjamin Disraeli. He returned even more convinced than he already had been that it was "in America's interests to pursue a close and amiable relationship with Great Britain." Winfield Scott Kerr wrote that "John Bright was in many respects the same type of statesman as John Sherman. A great speaker, and yet simple, direct and unostentatious to a degree approaching plainness." Out of all of the British statesmen who Sherman met overseas he was "most impressed" with John Bright, who was "in the prime of his strong, rugged, simple manhood" when Sherman met him. John Sherman: His Life and Public Services, Volume 1, by Winfield Scott Kerr pp. 53, 89, 91, 225, 270, 273, 336, 373, 396, 406
Wishing to see the appointment of Hanna, his friend and political manager, to the Senate, McKinley created a vacancy by appointing Sherman to his cabinet as Secretary of State.
War fever ran high, and by April, McKinley reported to Congress that efforts at diplomatic resolution had failed; a week later, Congress declared war. By this time, McKinley had begun to rely on Assistant Secretary of State William R. Day for day-to-day management of the State Department, and was even inviting him to cabinet meetings, as Sherman had stopped attending them. Day, a McKinley associate of long standing, superseded his boss as the real power in the State Department. Sherman, sensing that he was being made a mere figurehead and recognizing, at last, his declining health and worsening memory, resigned his office on April 25, 1898.
Sherman was not unmindful of his legacy and left $10,000 in his will for a biography to be written "by some competent person". Two biographies were published shortly after that, but neither mentions the bequest. In 1906, Congressman Theodore E. Burton of Ohio published a biography; two years later, former Representative Winfield S. Kerr of Mansfield published another. Both were very favorable to Sherman. A scholarly biography was said to be in preparation in Allan Nevins's "American Political Leaders" series of the 1920s and 1930s, to be written by Roy Franklin Nichols and his wife, Jeanette Paddock Nichols, but the work was never completed. Jeanette Nichols later published several articles on Sherman in the next few decades, but he still awaits a full-length scholarly biography. He is most remembered now for the antitrust act that bears his name. Burton, in summing up his subject, wrote:
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