Nathaniel P. Banks

“ On his return he modelled his colossal "Achilles mourning the loss of Briseis," a work full of force and passion; and thereupon he was elected, in 1784, an associate of the Royal Academy and in the following year a full member. Among other works in St Paul's cathedral are the monuments to Captain Westcott and Captain Burges, and in Westminster Abbey to Sir Eyre Coote. His bust of Warren Hastings is in the National Portrait Gallery. Banks's best-known work is perhaps the colossal group of "Shakespeare attended by Painting and Poetry," now in the garden of New Place, Stratford-on-Avon. ”

“ The cases under the bankrupt law of 1800 are not yet all disposed of. Now and then we find one walking the earth, like an unquiet ghost.
Mr. Clay, for the plaintiffs in error, in reply and conclusion.
Thomas Banks, a citizen of New Orleans, being the owner of a block of buildings in that city, a remarkable edifice, called Banks's Arcade, executed three several mortgages upon it, the first to the New Orleans Canal and Banking Company, the second to the Carrollton Railroad Company, and the third, and last in point of time, to the City Bank of New Orleans, the defendant in this writ of error. ”

“ General Banks earned for himself the reputation of being a thorough gentleman and, although his after career in the war was not signalized by much success, no failure on his part has been sufficient to erase the respect which he earned from people of all shades of political opinion in that region. His army occupied the low grounds between the Blue Ridge and the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, as, also, Pleasant Valley, while the General's headquarters were at the house of Mr. Jacob Miller, near Sandy Hook. ”

“ BANKS, Mrs. Mary Ross, author, born in Macon, Ga., 4th March, 1846. On her father's side she is from Scotch ancestry. Her grandfather, Luke Ross, was a man of large wealth for his day, and had a sumptuously appointed home, the furniture of which was hauled in wagons from New York City to North Carolina. A man of unblemished integrity, having stood security for a friend and lost, he sacrificed all his possessions and moved to Jones County, Ga., when the present beautiful city of Macon was a small trading port. Mrs. Banks' father, John Bennett Ross, was one of seven brothers and three sisters. ”

“ Like other urban centers in the Southeast, Nashville has grown steadily since World War II in both population and economic activity. Commercial banks, as 'the intermediaries in most financial transactions,' [2] grew along with their city. From 1955 to 1964, for example, total assets of all banks located in Davidson County increased from $548,300,000 to $1,053,700,000, an increase of 92.2%. The number of banks hardly changed. Indeed, since 1927 there has been only one new bank in the county, Capital City Bank, and at the time of this merger it had achieved only .9% of the county's bank assets. ”

“ Some fitting person will, it is to be hoped, ere too late, undertake to write the life of our distinguished countryman upon a scale calculated to do justice to his merits: at present this task is not only unperformed, but unattempted.
Joseph Banks was born in London, February 13, 1743. Of his childhood we find few memorials. He passed through the ordinary routine of education; having been first committed to the care of a private tutor at home, then placed at Harrow, afterwards at Eton, and finally sent to complete his studies at Christchurch, Oxford. ”

“ Banks is the fact that he never claims credit for doing anything that he can give credit to other people for doing. He has never made any effort to make himself prominent. He simply prefers to get a job done and, if he can use other people and give them credit for doing the work, he is happy to do so.
At the present time Charles Banks is not, by any means, the wealthiest, but I think I am safe in saying that he is the most influential, Negro business 208man in the United States. ”

“ Banks's army, supported by a powerful fleet, was sent up the Red river with the intention of regaining control of western Louisiana. At the same time Gen. A. J. Smith with 10,000 men descended the Mississippi, reaching the rendezvous first, and was joined by Gen. Banks, who assumed command of the whole force at Alexandria. The army advanced along the south bank of Red river as far as Sabine Cross-roads, when it suffered a defeat by the confederates under Gen. Richard Taylor, and was obliged to fall back to Pleasant Hill, having sustained heavy losses in men and material. ”

“ Banks was a man of humble origin. He used to be known as the Waltham Bobbin Boy. He worked in his boyhood and youth in a factory in Waltham. He had very early a passion for reading. When Felton was inaugurated President of Harvard, Banks was Governor. As is the custom, he represented the Commonwealth and inducted the new President into office. There were famous speakers at the Dinner,— Daniel Webster, old Josiah Quincy, Edward Everett, Dr. Walker, Winthrop, and Felton himself. ”

“ The National bank system with all its merits has not escaped serious opposition. The Bank of the United States, as twice established, incurred the hostility of the Democratic party,—their two greatest leaders, Jefferson and Jackson, regarding the creation of such an institution as not warranted by the Constitution. A persistent attempt has been made by certain partisans to persuade the people that the national banks of to-day are as objectionable as those which encountered serious hostility at earlier periods in our history. ”

“ Mr Banks's confidence in Tubourai Tamaide had greatly--increased since the affair of the knife, in consequence of which he was at length exposed to temptations which neither his integrity nor his honour was able to resist. They had withstood many allurements, but were at length ensnared by the fascinating charms of a basket of nails: These nails were much larger than any that had yet been brought into trade, and had, with perhaps some degree of criminal negligence, been left in a corner of Mr Banks's tent, to which the chief had always free access. ”

“ Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the fiercest beat of sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes the wayfarer to shady nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot penetrate; but she provides no shelter against her storms. It makes us shiver to think of those deep, umbrageous recesses, those overshadowing banks, where we found such enjoyment during the sultry afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would dash a little shower into our faces. ”

“ On the morning of July 4, 1874, I entered the Basin of Quebec with my wooden canoe and my waterman, one David Bodfish, a "shoreman" of New Jersey. After weeks of preparation and weary travel by rail and by water, we had steamed up the Gulf and the River of St. Lawrence to this our most northern point of departure. We viewed the frowning heights upon which was perched the city of Quebec with unalloyed pleasure, and eagerly scrambled up the high banks to see the interesting old city. The tide, which rises at the city piers eighteen feet in the spring, during the neaps reaches only thirteen feet. ”

“ This power to disparage the notes of all other banks, is a power to injure them; and, added to all the other privileges of the Bank of the United States, is a power to destroy them! If any one doubts this assertion, let him read the answers of the president of the bank to the questions put to him by the chairman of the Finance Committee. These answers are appended to the committee's report of the last session in favor of the bank, and expressly declare the capacity of the federal bank to destroy the State banks. ”

“ It is out of the question to hope that these facilities may be provided through modifications of the national bank system. The banks, and especially those of New York, have to encounter so much prejudice and ignorant demagogism from Congress, in seeking any modification of the national system, that they would sooner endure almost any wrong than demand changes in the law. Their only redress is in reorganizing under the State laws, which many of them have already done, whilst new institutions almost uniformly prefer the State system. ”

“ Banks took an active part in the affairs of the Royal Society. His house was constantly open to men of science, whether British or foreign, and by the urbanity of his manners, and his liberal use of the advantages of fortune, he acquired that popularity which six years afterwards led to his election as President of that distinguished body. Two or three years afterwards a dangerous schism had nearly arisen in the Society, chiefly in consequence of the unreasonable anger of a party of mathematicians, headed by Dr. Horsley, afterwards Bishop of St. ”

“ Nothing more is known about Banks; it is reported that he was buried at St. James's, Westminster. He published nothing except the seven dramas mentioned above, all of which are tragedies in five acts and in verse. Banks is a dreary and illiterate writer, whose blank verse is execrable. ”

“ The Bank of the United States can crush hundreds on any day that it pleases. It can send out its agents into every State of the Union, with sealed orders to be opened on a given day, like captains sent into different seas; and can break hundreds of local banks within the same hour, and over an extent of thousands of miles. It can do this with perfect ease—the more easily with resurrection notes—and thus excite a universal panic, crush the resuming banks, and then charge the whole upon the government. ”

“ Few men in the country have, in these latter days of politics, been so uniformly successful, even when circumstances were untoward, as Governor Banks. He is known by the people as a lucky man. He succeeds in whatever he undertakes. He has risen from an obscure young man to be Speaker of the National House of Representatives, and Governor of one of the first States of the Union. What may not such a man expect if he be ambitious?
Mr. Banks was born in Waltham, Mass., January 30, 1816, where he received a common school education. ”

“ Banks's personal efforts to rally them were useless, and he was borne away by the tide. Three miles in the rear the Nineteenth Corps was drawn up in line, and here the rout was stayed. The Confederates attacked this line, but could not break it, and at nightfall retired. Banks had lost over three thousand men, nineteen guns, and a large amount of stores.
A participant in this battle, writing an account of it at the time, said: "General Banks personally directed the fight. Everything that man could do he did. ”

“ The National banking system is proving to be acceptable to capitalists and the people. On the 25th day of November, five hundred and eighty-four National Banks had been organized, a considerable number of which were conversions from State banks. Changes from the State system to the National system are rapidly taking place, and it is hoped that very soon there will be in the United States no banks of issue not authorized by Congress, and no bank-note circulation not secured by the government. ”

“ Can you make men free by constitution simply? Are there no slaves except those who, like the African thirty years ago, are bought and sold at the auction block? Ay, indeed! for every black man liberated by President Lincoln's proclamation, there is, to-day, a white man robbed and degraded and brutalized by some gigantic trust or other equally soulless, unfeeling, corporate power.
For every mother whose heart was broken by having her children wrenched from her arms in the African slave-market, there is a white mother, whose very soul is crushed at the sight of her hungry, ragged, little ones. ”

“ But, ye see, Banks has never got ower his spite at me for no' takin' his nephew for ma apprentice instead o' yersel'. Moreover, he was aye cauld-heartit, like the fish he sells. Oh, ay, he was rale delighted to be the bearer o' the bad news. It's a curious thing," the painter continued, reflectively, "hoo humanity delights in inhumanity on what I micht ca' a sma' scale. It doesna rej'ice in a railway accident, but it likes fine to behold a man tummle on a slide; it doesna cry 'hurray!' when a bank breaks, but, apparently, it canna keep back a bit snicker when it sees a neighbour lossin' money. ”

“ Chief Justice Waite, who delivered the opinion of the court in that case:
'It is clear to our minds that, as it stood originally as part of § 57 [13 Stat. at L. 116, chap. 106] , after 1873, and as it stands now in the Revised Statutes, it operates as a prohibition upon all attachments against national banks under the authority of the state courts. . . . It stands now, as it did originally, as the paramount law of the land, that attachments shall not issue from state courts against national banks, and writes into all state attachment laws an exception in favor of national banks. ”

“ He respected Banks more than any man he had ever known, and loved him—had loved him, in the days when he was capable of love. He could ruin Banks; or, rather, Banks' suspicion would ruin Banks himself. A less honest man would never let himself suspect the partner on whose free capital he existed, but that would not influence Banks, or would influence him to action. Yes, Banks would act. How?
Bethson sat there a long time with his chin in his hand, gazing out toward the Sound, until, as dusk fell, a smart little black motorboat made its appearance in the cove. ”