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John Sherman
John Sherman (May 10, 1823 – October 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 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.
Sherman was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on May 10, 1823, to Charles Robert Sherman and his wife, Mary Hoyt Sherman, the eighth of their 11 children. John Sherman's grandfather, Taylor Sherman, a Connecticut lawyer and judge, first visited Ohio in the early nineteenth century, gaining title to several parcels of land before returning to Connecticut. After Taylor's death in 1815, his son Charles, newly married to Mary Hoyt, moved the family west to Ohio. Several other Sherman relatives soon followed, and Charles became established as a lawyer in Lancaster. By the time of John Sherman's birth, Charles had just been appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
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 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 patronage, 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 study 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 (~$284,535 in 2024) 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 moved north to Cleveland in 1853 and established a law office there with two partners. Events soon interrupted Sherman's plans for a new law firm, as the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 inspired him (and many other anti-slavery Northerners) to take a more involved role in politics. That Act, the brainchild of Illinois Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, opened the two named territories to slavery, an implicit repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Intended to quiet national agitation over slavery by shifting the decision to local settlers, Douglas's Act instead inflamed anti-slavery sentiment in the North by allowing the possibility of slavery's expansion to territories held as free soil for three decades. Two months after the Act's passage, Sherman became a candidate for Ohio's 13th congressional district. A local convention nominated Sherman over two other candidates to represent what was then called the Opposition Party (later to become the Republican Party). The new party, a fusion of Free Soilers, Whigs, and anti-slavery Democrats, had many discordant elements, and some among the former group thought Sherman too conservative on the slavery question. Nevertheless, they supported him against the incumbent Democrat, William D. Lindsley. Democrats were defeated across Ohio that year, and Sherman was elected by 2,823 votes.
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John Sherman
John Sherman (May 10, 1823 – October 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 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.
Sherman was born in Lancaster, Ohio, on May 10, 1823, to Charles Robert Sherman and his wife, Mary Hoyt Sherman, the eighth of their 11 children. John Sherman's grandfather, Taylor Sherman, a Connecticut lawyer and judge, first visited Ohio in the early nineteenth century, gaining title to several parcels of land before returning to Connecticut. After Taylor's death in 1815, his son Charles, newly married to Mary Hoyt, moved the family west to Ohio. Several other Sherman relatives soon followed, and Charles became established as a lawyer in Lancaster. By the time of John Sherman's birth, Charles had just been appointed a justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio.
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 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 patronage, 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 study 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 (~$284,535 in 2024) 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 moved north to Cleveland in 1853 and established a law office there with two partners. Events soon interrupted Sherman's plans for a new law firm, as the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Act in 1854 inspired him (and many other anti-slavery Northerners) to take a more involved role in politics. That Act, the brainchild of Illinois Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, opened the two named territories to slavery, an implicit repeal of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Intended to quiet national agitation over slavery by shifting the decision to local settlers, Douglas's Act instead inflamed anti-slavery sentiment in the North by allowing the possibility of slavery's expansion to territories held as free soil for three decades. Two months after the Act's passage, Sherman became a candidate for Ohio's 13th congressional district. A local convention nominated Sherman over two other candidates to represent what was then called the Opposition Party (later to become the Republican Party). The new party, a fusion of Free Soilers, Whigs, and anti-slavery Democrats, had many discordant elements, and some among the former group thought Sherman too conservative on the slavery question. Nevertheless, they supported him against the incumbent Democrat, William D. Lindsley. Democrats were defeated across Ohio that year, and Sherman was elected by 2,823 votes.
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