Nathaniel Prentice (or Prentiss)Many short biographical summaries spell his middle name "Prentiss." He is known to have spelled it "Prentice". Banks (January 30, 1816 – September 1, 1894) was an American politician from Massachusetts and a Union general during the Civil War. A millworker, Banks became prominent in local debating societies and entered politics as a young adult. Initially a member of the Democratic Party, Banks's abolitionist views drew him to the nascent Republican Party, through which he won election to the United States House of Representatives and as Governor of Massachusetts in the 1850s. At the start of the 34th Congress, he was elected Speaker of the House in an election that spanned a record 133 ballots taken over the course of two months.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln appointed Banks as one of the first political major generals, over the heads of West Point regulars, who initially resented him, but came to acknowledge his influence on the administration of the war. After suffering a series of inglorious setbacks in the Shenandoah River Valley at the hands of Stonewall Jackson, Banks replaced Benjamin Butler at New Orleans as commander of the Department of the Gulf, charged with the administration of Louisiana and gaining control of the Mississippi River. He failed to reinforce Grant at Vicksburg, and badly handled the Siege of Port Hudson, taking its surrender only after Vicksburg had fallen. He then launched the Red River Campaign, a failed attempt to occupy northern Louisiana and eastern Texas that prompted his recall. Banks was regularly criticized for the failures of his campaigns, notably in tactically important tasks, including reconnaissance. Banks was also instrumental in early reconstruction efforts in Louisiana, intended by Lincoln as a model for later such activities.
After the war, Banks returned to the Massachusetts political scene, serving in Congress, where he supported Manifest destiny, influenced the Alaska Purchase legislation, and supported women's suffrage. In his later years, he adopted more liberal progressive causes. He served as a United States marshal for Massachusetts before suffering a decline in his mental faculties.
Early life
Nathaniel Prentice Banks was born at Waltham, Massachusetts, the first child of Nathaniel P. Banks Sr. and Rebecca Greenwood Banks, on January 30, 1816. His father worked in the textile mill of the Boston Manufacturing Company, eventually becoming a foreman. Banks went to local schools until the age of fourteen, at which point the family's financial demands compelled him to take a mill job. He started as a bobbin boy, responsible for replacing bobbins full of thread with empty ones, working in the mills of Waltham and Lowell. Because of this role he became known as Bobbin Boy Banks, a nickname he carried throughout his life. He was at one time apprenticed as a mechanic alongside Elias Howe, a cousin who later had the first patent for a sewing machine with a lockstitch design.
Recognizing the value of education, Banks continued to read, sometimes walking to Boston on his days off to visit the Atheneum Library. He attended company-sponsored lectures by luminaries of the day, including Daniel Webster and other orators. He formed a debate club with other mill workers to improve their oratorical skills and took up acting. He became involved in the local temperance movement; speaking at its events brought him to the attention of Democratic Party leaders, who asked him to speak at campaign events during the 1840 elections. He honed his oratorical and political skills by emulating Robert Rantoul Jr., a Democratic Congressman who also had humble beginnings. His personal good looks, voice, and flair for presentation were all assets that he used to gain advantage in the political sphere, and he deliberately sought to present himself with a more aristocratic bearing than was suggested by his humble beginnings.
Banks's success as a speaker convinced him to quit the mill. He first worked as an editor for two short-lived political newspapers; after they failed, he ran for a seat in the state legislature in 1844, but lost. He then applied for a job to Rantoul, who had been appointed Collector of the Port of Boston, a patronage position. Banks's job, which he held until political changes forced him out in 1849, gave him sufficient security that he was able to marry Mary Theodosia Palmer, an ex-factory employee he had been courting for some time. Banks again ran for the state legislature in 1847, but was unsuccessful.
Antebellum political career
In 1848, Banks was victorious in another run for the state legislature, successfully organizing elements in Waltham whose votes were not easily controlled by the Whig-controlled Boston Manufacturing Company. Company leaders could effectively compel their workers to vote for Whig candidates because there was no secret ballot. He was at first moderate in opposition to the expansion of slavery, but recognizing the potency of the burgeoning abolitionist movement, he became more strongly attached to that cause as a vehicle for political advancement. This brought Banks, along with fellow Democrats Rantoul and George S. Boutwell to form a coalition with the Free Soil Party that successfully gained control of the legislature and governor's chair. The deals negotiated after the coalition's win in the 1850 election put Boutwell in the governor's chair and made Banks the Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Although Banks did not like the radical Free Soiler Charles Sumner (either personally or for his strongly abolitionist politics), he supported the coalition agreement that resulted in Sumner's election to the United States Senate, despite opposition from conservative Democrats. His role as house speaker and his effectiveness in conducting business raised his status significantly, as did his publicity work for the state Board of Education.
Congress In 1852, Banks sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the United States Congress. While it was at first granted, his refusal to disavow abolitionist positions meant support was withdrawn by party conservatives. He ended up winning a narrow victory anyway, with Free Soil support. In 1853, he presided over the state Constitutional Convention of 1853. This convention produced a series of proposals for constitutional reform, including a new constitution, all of which were rejected by voters. The failure, which was led by Whigs and conservative anti-abolitionist Democrats, spelled the end of the Democratic-Free Soil coalition.
In Congress, Banks sat on the Committee of Military Affairs. He bucked the Democratic party line by voting against the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which overturned the 1820 Missouri Compromise, using his parliamentary skills in an effort to keep the bill from coming to a vote. Supported by his constituents, he then publicly endorsed the abolitionist cause. His opposition came despite long stated support for Manifest Destiny (the idea that the United States was destined to rule the North American continent), which the bill's proponents claimed it furthered. In 1854, he formally joined the so-called Know Nothing cause, a secretive populist and anti-immigration nativist movement – officially named American Party since 1855. He was renominated for Congress by the Democrats and Free Soilers, and won an easy victory in that year's Know Nothing landslide victory. Banks was, along with Henry Wilson and Governor Henry J. Gardner, considered one of the political leaders of the Know Nothing movement, although none of the three supported its extreme anti-immigrant positions of many of its supporters.
In 1855, Banks agreed to chair the convention of a new Republican Party convention, whose platform was intended to bring together antislavery interests from the Democrats, Whigs, Free Soilers, and Know Nothings. When Know Nothing Governor Henry Gardner refused to join in the fusion, Banks carefully kept his options open, passively supporting the Republican effort but also avoiding criticism of Gardner in his speeches. Gardner was reelected. During the summer of 1855, Banks was invited to speak at an antislavery rally in Portland, Maine, his first major speaking opportunity outside Massachusetts. In the speech, Banks expressed his opinion that the Union did not necessarily need to be preserved, say that under certain conditions it would be appropriate to "let [the Union] slide". Future political opponents would repeatedly use these words against him, accusing him of "disunionism".
At the opening of the 34th U.S. Congress in December 1855, after the Democrats had lost their majority and only made up 35% of the House, representatives from several parties opposed to slavery's spread gradually united in supporting the Know Nothing Banks for Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. After the longest speakership contests on record, lasting from December 3, 1855, to February 2, 1856, Banks was chosen on the 133rd ballot, receiving 103 votes out of 214 cast, or five less than an absolute majority. The coalition supporting him was formed by his American Party (known as the Know Nothing Party) and the Opposition Party, which opposed the Democrats, marking the first form of a coalition in congressional history. This victory was lauded at the time as the "first Republican victory" and "first Northern victory" – although Banks is officially affiliated as Speaker from the American Party – and greatly raised Banks's national profile. He gave antislavery men important posts in Congress for the first time, and cooperated with investigations of both the Kansas conflict and the caning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate. Because of his fairness in dealing with the numerous factions, as well as his parliamentary ability, Banks was lauded by others in the body, including former Speaker Howell Cobb, who called him "in all respects the best presiding officer [I] had ever seen."
Banks played a key role in 1856 in bringing forward John C. Frémont as a moderate Republican presidential nominee. Because of his success as speaker, Banks was considered a possible presidential contender, and his name was put in nomination by supporters (knowing that he supported Frémont) at the Know Nothing convention, held one week before the Republicans met. Banks then refused the Know Nothing nomination, which went instead to former President Millard Fillmore. Banks was active on the stump in support of Frémont, who lost the election to James Buchanan. Banks easily won reelection to his own seat, though Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives. He was not re-nominated for speaker when the 35th Congress convened in December 1857.
Governor of Massachusetts In 1857, Banks ran for Governor of Massachusetts against the incumbent Gardner. His nomination by the Republicans was contentious, with opposition coming primarily from radical abolitionist interests opposed to his comparatively moderate stand on the issue. After a contentious general election campaign Banks won a comfortable victory. One key action Banks took in support of the antislavery movement was the dismissal of Judge Edward G. Loring. Loring had ruled in 1854 that Anthony Burns, a fugitive slave, be returned to slavery under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Under the pressure of a public petition campaign spearheaded by William Lloyd Garrison, the legislature passed two Bills of Address, in 1855 and 1856, calling for Loring's removal from his state office, but in both cases Gardner had declined to remove him. Banks signed a third such bill in 1858. He was rewarded with significant antislavery support, easily winning reelection in 1858.