Originally, the bill was simply known as the Silver Purchase Act of 1890. Only after the bill was signed into law did it become the "Sherman Silver Purchase Act.". Senator John Sherman, an Ohio Republican and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, was not the author of the bill, but once both houses of Congress had passed the Act and the Act had been sent to a Senate/House conference committee to iron out differences between the Senate and House versions of the Act, Senator John Sherman was instrumental in getting the conference committee to reach agreement on a final draft of the Act. Nonetheless, once agreement on the final version was reached in the conference committee, Sherman found that he disagreed with many sections of the act. So tepid was Sherman's support that when he was asked his opinion of the act by President Benjamin Harrison, Sherman ventured only that the bill was "safe" and would cause no harm if the President signed it.
