John Sherman

John Sherman was an American politician from Ohio who served in federal office throughout the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. He was the younger brother of Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, with whom he had a close relationship.

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. 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 the unrest 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, business 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.

Secretary of the Treasury :

Sherman's financial expertise and his friendship with Hayes made him a natural choice for Treasury Secretary in 1877. Like Grant before him, Hayes had not consulted party leaders about his cabinet appointments, and the Senate took the then-unusual step of referring all of them to committee. Two days later, senators approved Sherman's nomination after an hour of debate, and he began lobbying his former colleagues to approve the other nominations, which they eventually did. Hayes and Sherman became close friends in the next four years, taking regular carriage rides together to discuss matters of state in private. In the Treasury, as in the Senate, Sherman was confronted with two tasks: first, to prepare for specie resumption when it took effect in 1879; second, to deal with the backlash against the diminution of silver coinage.

Secretary of State :

In January 1897, McKinley offered Sherman the Secretary of State position, which Sherman, facing a difficult re-election campaign in 1898, quickly accepted. His appointment was swiftly confirmed when Congress convened that March. The appointment was seen as a good one, but many in Washington soon began to question whether Sherman, at age 73, still had the strength and intellectual vigor to handle the job; rumors circulated to that effect, but McKinley did not believe them. Asked for advice on the inaugural address, Sherman offered a draft threatening intervention in Cuba, then in rebellion against Spain; the suggestion was ignored. 

Both Sherman and McKinley sought a peaceful resolution to the Cuban War, preferably involving an independent Cuba without American intervention. The United States and Spain began negotiations on the subject in 1897, but it became clear that Spain would never concede Cuban independence, while the rebels (and their American supporters) would never settle for anything less. In January 1898, Spain promised some concessions to the rebels, but when American consul Fitzhugh Lee reported riots in Havana, McKinley agreed to send the battleship USS Maine there to protect American lives and property. On February 15, the Maine exploded and sank with 266 men killed. 

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.