That he had made splendid progress along those lines cannot be denied.
The announced southern policy of the Hayes administration not only
completed the destruction of what had been thus accomplished, but it
made any further progress in that direction absolutely impossible. The
selection of ex-Senator Key was, however, not the only Cabinet
appointment which clearly indicated the southern policy of the
administration. There were two others,--those of William M. Evarts and
Carl Schurz. Those men had been prominent in their bitter opposition to
the southern policy of President Grant. Mr. Schurz had been one of the
leaders in the Greeley movement against President Grant and the
Republican party in 1872, while Mr. Evarts was later the principal
speaker at a public indignation meeting that was held at New York to
denounce the southern policy of the Grant administration. In fact, John
Sherman was the only one of the Cabinet ministers that had a positive
national standing, and even his brilliant star was somewhat marred on
account of the impression that, as one of the Hayes managers, he had
been a party to the deals and agreements that had been made and entered
into as a condition precedent to the peaceable induction of Mr. Hayes
into office. It was known, or at any rate believed, that Mr. Sherman's
appointment as Secretary of the Treasury was for the one specific
purpose of bringing about the resumption of specie payments. He was the
author of the act which fixed the date when specie payments should be
resumed. He had the reputation of being one of the ablest financiers the
country had produced. That he should be named to carry into effect the
act of which he was the author was to be expected. For the reasons above
stated, it was the one Cabinet appointment that met with general
approval.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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