Biography

Representative, Senator and then Sec. of State under McKinley.  Wikipedia reports that he was nearly elected speaker of the house in '59.  

Here follows the official congressional biography

 SHERMAN, John, a Representative and a Senator from Ohio; born in Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio, on May 10, 1823; attended the common schools and an academy in Ohio; left school to work as an engineer on canal projects; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1844 and began practice in Mansfield, Ohio; moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1853; elected as a Republican to the Thirty-fourth and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1855, to March 21, 1861, when he resigned; chairman, Committee on Ways and Means (Thirty-sixth Congress); elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1861 to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Salmon P. Chase; reelected in 1866 and 1872 and served from March 21, 1861, until his resignation on March 8, 1877; chairman, Committee on Agriculture (1863-67), Committee on Finance (1863-65, 1867-77); appointed Secretary of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Rutherford Hayes in March 1877, and served until March 1881; again elected as a Republican to the United States Senate in 1881 in the place of James A. Garfield, who had been elected President of the United States; reelected in 1886 and 1892 and served from March 4, 1881, until his resignation on March 4, 1897; Republican Conference chairman (1884-1885, 1891-1897); President pro tempore (1885-1887); chairman, Committee on the Library (Forty-seventh through Forty-ninth Congresses), Committee on Foreign Relations (Forty-ninth through Fifty-second Congresses, Fifty-fourth Congress); appointed Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President William McKinley and served from March 1897, until his resignation in April 1898; retired to private life; died in Washington, D.C., October 22, 1900; interment in Mansfield Cemetery, Mansfield, Richland County, Ohio.