INTRODUCTION

PRETENSE OF GLORY:
A Biography of General Nathaniel P. Banks

In 1858 Nathaniel P. Banks had as good a chance as anyone to become the next president of the United States. A two-term congressman from Massachusetts and already Speaker of the House, the forty-two-year- old Banks was an up-and-coming star of the new Republican Party. Two years earlier he had contributed to John Frémont's bid for the presidency, and Frémont's strong showing had positioned the Republicans to win the White House in1860.

Abraham Lincoln's future in 1858 did not look quite so bright. Debating and losing a Senate seat to Stephen A. Douglas, Lincoln was a stark contrast to Nathaniel P. Banks. Awkward and rough-hewn, Lincoln's plain talk seemed unrefined, even undignified, when compared to Banks's style of speaking with its eloquent flourishes and oratorical highlights.

Despite these differences in appearance, Banks and Lincoln had much in common. Both came from working-class backgrounds; both were self-educated. Each was a pragmatic politician who understood the value of compromise. Most importantly, both men were against slavery. In short, there was little to separate Banks and Lincoln in terms of their political beliefs, butit was Lincoln who captured the presidency in 1860.

The fundamental and, as it turned out, critical difference between the two men lay beneath the surface. Although Banks and Lincoln were both skillful politicians, they differed in terms of why each had chosen a career in politics. For Lincoln, politics provided the opportunity to realize the ideals upon which the country was founded. For Banks, becoming a politician was an end in itself.

Banks made no excuse for the way he was. "Two classes of statesmen have, at different times in the world's history, attempted to develop their ideas in its government, and clothe its institutions with a drapery oftheir own," he observed during one of his first speeches from thefloor of the House of Representatives. "One has been willing to sacrifice nearly every opportunity and possibility of success to an artificial perfection in theory; the other has, in a more business-like manner, labored rather to attain that which was practicable than to discover or establish that which was perfect."

Banks was a "practicable" man throughout his life. This book is an account of how his pragmatism, taken to extremes, prevented him from realizing the promise of what at the beginning had the prospects of becoming a remarkable career.

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