stern portion of the
union, beyond the Mississippi River, would yield whenever that river
was opened to the Gulf, and the army of Lee had capitulated. Hence the
unwisdom of the undertaking. It is sufficient to say that nothing
occurred in that campaign which was discreditable to General Banks.
The obstacles were too great to have been overcome, and nothing in the
nature of success could have been attained by Sherman or Grant. I turn
again to the aspect of General Banks' career on the civil side.

In knowledge of parliamentary law and in ability to administer that law
it may be claimed justly that General Banks had no rival in his
generation. As a speaker he approached the rank of an orator, if he
did not attain to it. His presence was stately and attractive, his
voice was agreeable, far reaching and commanding, and his control of an
audience was absolute, for the time being. That his auditors may at
times have differed from his conclusions but only when the speech was
ended, and the spell was broken, is evidence of his power as a speaker.

That he came into public life as the associate and rival of Sumner,
Wilson, and Burlingame, and that in his whole career as a public man he
kept his equal place to the end, and that in Congress he suffered
nothing when compared with the able men who occupied seats in the lower
House between the year 1850 and the year 1870, give him rank as one of
the foremost statesmen of his time. If it be said that his name is not
identified with any important measure of the government the same may be
said of Mr. Sumner, of Mr. Wilson, of Mr. Conkling, and others, whose
speeches and opinions have had large influence upon the policy of the
country. A great measure is the result of many causes and in its
promulgation it may bear the name of a person whose contribution has
been insignificant relatively.

General Banks had aptitude for public affairs--an aptitude which
approached genius. His mind dwelt upon great projects, and never upon
petty schemes, nor upon intrigues as a means of success. His warfare
was a bold one, and in the open field. In politics he was deficient in
organizing qualities, but he had unbounded confidence in his own
ability and in the ability of his associates and friends to command and
to retain popular support. As to himself, that confidence rested upon
an adequate basis. In the last fifty years there has been no other man
in Massachusetts who was as generously su