"Gentlemen:—Some one, perhaps in your office, sends me the following editorial, cut from your paper:
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"All I can say in reply is that it contains a falsehood and a calumny. I introduced the bill for the Southern Railroad; am strongly in favor of it, and pressed it at every stage as rapidly as the rules of the Senate and the strong opposition to it would allow. This is known by every Senator, and I am quite sure Judge Thurman and Mr. Davis would say so. I alone took an active interest in the bill, and at the very moment your editorial was received I was pressing a Republican caucus to make it an exception to a resolution not to take up general legislation at this session. Everyone familiar with our rules knew that it was the sheerest folly to try to pass the bill on the last day of the session, especially as against our appropriation bills. When it does pass it will take days of debate, and will not receive support from any of your political associates, who think Kentucky can block up all intercourse between the north and south. Still I yielded to the earnest desire of the trustees to try to get a vote, but failed to get the floor at 3 o'clock in the morning, the only moment it was possible to submit even the motion to take it up. The bill to abolish the duty of coal was taken up and was not acted on, nor would the railroad bill, or any other contested bill, have passed at that stage of the session.
"As to the base imputation you attribute to 'a gentleman who lately filled a responsible office in this city,' I can only say that, whether it originates with you or anyone else, it is utterly false. Neither in this nor in any measure that has passed Congress, or is pending, have I had any direct pecuniary interest. I respectfully ask that you print this, and also the name of the 'gentleman' you refer to.
"I intend, in the interests of the city of Cincinnati and of the whole country, to press the Southern Railroad bill, and to secure its passage as soon as possible, but it is rather poor encouragement to read such libels in a prominent paper in your city.
"Yours etc.,
"John Sherman."
This was followed by an article in the "Enquirer" embodied in my reply, as follows:
"Washington, March 20, 1871. "Gentlemen:—In your editorial in the 'Enquirer' of March 17, in commenting on my card to you as to my action on the Cincinnati Southern Railroad bill, you repeat my statement that 'neither in this nor in any measure that has passed Congress, or is pending, have I any pecuniary interest,' and you say:
'If this is true, he has certainly been a very badly slandered gentleman. Somehow or other there is a popular impression that Mr. Sherman has contrived to make his connection with politics a highly lucrative business, and that he has exhibited, since he has been in Congress, a worldly thrift that is remarkable. There is a further impression that he is now a very rich man, whereas, a few years ago, before he was in public affairs, his circumstances were decidedly moderate. Perhaps our senatorial friend may not be aware of the existence of these derogatory reports, and will thank us for giving him an opportunity, now that he knows of their existence, to disprove them.'
"I have not been ignorant that there has been a studied effort— ascribed by me to the common tactics of political warfare—to create the impression, by vague innuendo, that I have used my official position to make money for myself. I know that this charge or imputation is without the slightest foundation, and I now repeat that I never was pecuniarily interested in any question, bill or matter before Congress; that I never received anything in money, or property, or promise, directly or indirectly, for my vote or influence in Congress or in the departments; that I have studiously avoided engaging in any business depending upon legislation in Congress. The only enterprise in which I ever engaged, which rests upon an act of Congress, is that in 1862, after the bill passed authorizing the construction of a street railroad in this city, I, with others, openly subscribed stock, and undertook to build it in pursuance of the act of Congress.