Fr 664 John Sherman 50 Dollar National Bank Note

U.S. Senator from Ohio, John Sherman appears on the Fr. 664 John Sherman $50 NBN. This is very appropriate since he was the author of the bill that created National Banks and National Currency in the first place. He is also one half of the only siblings “to appear prominently” on U.S. federal paper money.

Background
In addition to being a career Senator (1861-77, 1881-97), John Sherman’s resumé of public service included serving as a U.S. Congressman (1855-1861), Secretary of the Treasury (March 10, 1877-March 3, 1881, in President Rutherford B. Hayes’ cabinet), Secretary of State (March 6, 1897-April 27, 1898, in President William McKinley’s cabinet), and Presidential aspirant in 1880, 1884 and 1888. He is an exemplary subject to appear on U.S. currency, FR nos. 664-685a.

John Sherman’s life (May 10,1823-October 22, 1900) is rich in irony. Born in Mansfield, Richland County, Ohio, he was a son of Charles Robert Sherman (c.1788- June 24, 1829), a justice of Ohio’s state supreme court, who died in office 1829.

He attended public schools and later the Homer Academy in Lancaster, PA, but left school to work on the canals as a teenager. He returned to Mansfield, OH, near Cleveland in 1840. There the 17-year-old took to the “family business.” He studied law under his eldest brother and an uncle, and was admitted to practice in 1844.

A practical entrepreneur, Sherman invested in real estate and acquired a portion of a lumber firm. In 1848 he also married well to Margaret Sarah Stewart, the only daughter of a local judge.

In 1853 they moved to nearby Cleveland. It was but another short step from the law to politics. Sherman became a delegate to the Whig national conventions of 1848 and 1852. In 1855 he presided over the first Republican state convention in Ohio. An abolitionist member of the fledgling Republican party, John Sherman spent most of the rest of his adult life in federal service.

History
First as Chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee and then as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sherman put his stamp on the swirling monetary maladies of the day. He supported the Legal Tender Act of 1862, and on January 26, 1863, introduced the National Currency Act in the U.S. Senate. On February 10, 1863, he addressed Congress on the necessity of a uniform national currency.

The legislation passed, creating opportunities for the federal government to sell additional bonds as backing for the paper money the Act authorized. However, the powerful Sherman soon came to loggerheads with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase’s successor Hugh McCulloch, whose desire to retire the greenbacks at the end of the war created a recession.

While serving on the Committee on Finance (1863-1865, chairman 1867-1877), Sherman was an ardent advocate for the return of specie payments, paying down the debt in gold, and a thrifty post war government that lived within its means. Sherman pushed through the Resumption Act of January 14, 1875, which set the date of January 1, 1879, as date to resume specie payments for legal tender notes.

It has often been said, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. Stepping down from the Senate, he was appointed the 32nd Secretary of the Treasury. When Sherman accepted President Hayes’ nomination to be Secretary of the Treasury, his purpose was implementing resumption of specie (coin) payments, which had been suspended as an emergency war measure, a course that he had long advocated in the U.S. Senate and committed the government to meeting.

The new Treasury Secretary faced stiff resistance to specie resumption, especially from members of his own party from the west, who represented farmers wanting a greenback economy. A majority in Congress were not in sympathy with Sherman’s views. Bills were introduced to further delay resumption. The uneasiness stemmed from the gold premium, which remained long after the war. The specie premium declined during 1878, and Sherman continued to hold firm.

When resumption day January 2, 1879, came only $135,000 of paper notes were presented for redemption, while $400,000 in gold had been exchanged for legal tender paper money. Sherman’s policy was a success. Our nation was back on a secure financial footing.

Mission accomplished John Sherman returned to the U.S. Senate again March 4, 1881, to replace James A. Garfield, who had been elected President of the United States. Sherman was reelected in 1886 and 1892 and served until his resignation on March 4, 1897.

In this second stint in the Senate, Sherman was architect of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, the first measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit monopolies. Based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, the Act declared illegal “every contract, combination (in the form of a trust or otherwise), or conspiracy in restraint of interstate and foreign trade.”

Sherman also was responsible for the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of July 14, 1890, that supplanted the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, which had authorized the Morgan dollar. This new act required the U.S. government to purchase nearly twice as much silver as before (4.5 million ounces, 281,250 pounds of silver each month at market rates).

It also added substantially to the amount of money already in circulation. The Treasury would issue notes redeemable in either gold or silver, the Treasury or Coin Notes of 1890-1891. Sherman’s measure was a compromise with the advocates of free silver, but after the panic of 1893, President Cleveland called a special session of Congress and secured repeal of the act.

Upon leaving the Senate, he became U.S. Secretary of State, 1897-98, but in failing health, resigned from the Cabinet. He wrote Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate, and Cabinet (1895). A Methodist, John Sherman died in Washington, D.C., October 22, 1900. His interment was at his hometown cemetery in Mansfield, Ohio.

John Sherman’s long and distinguished public service was fittingly honored when designs were changed for the introduction of the Third Charter National Bank Notes. He was selected for depiction on Series 1902 Red Seal $50s and successive issues of that denomination.

Collecting
A great number of Friedberg varieties of this note exist, consisting of first issue plain backs with red seals (Fr. nos. 664-666), second issue date backs with blue seals (Fr. 667-674a), and third issue plain backs with blue seals (Fr. 675-685a). A thousand dollars can garner a well circulated example of the second or third issues, while first issues even in low grades command $4,000 and up. High end Ch. Unc. notes catalog from $5,000-$15,000. Rare states, cities, and banks up the ante considerably.

John Sherman’s lifetime of public service is unfortunately eclipsed in the public mind by that of his older brother, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman, Lincoln’s strong arm and bane to the deep south.

The older Sherman boy served in the U.S. Army (1840-1853, 1861-1881), said “war is hell,” marched to the sea, and served as Secretary of War (1869 in the administration of President Ulysses S Grant). He representation on U.S. federal currency is somewhat evanescent. He appeared on Fr. 379, Series 1891 $500 Treasury Note payable in coin, no examples of which are known, and on specimen fractional currency which was unissued.