Our Living Representative Men

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by

CHILES & PETERSON,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO.
PHILADELPHIA.

DEACON & PETERSON, PRINTERS.

PREFACE.

THIS work embraces memoirs of the lives and public services of those statesmen, soldiers, and politicians who have been prominently saggested for the Presidential suc

cession in 1861.

The endeavor has been to make the work useful in matter rather than ornamental in style,--to give a graphic and comprehensive record of the public acts of our public men, free from any partisan influence, and to present each in the position accorded to him by his party and attained by the advocacy of the principles to which he has devoted his powers of intellect. Thus the acts and words of each man are allowed to define his own position. Each man speaks for himself, through the history of his public career, of whose utterances I am but the recorder and not the judge.

In bringing together the lives of so many contemporaries,―men who have been engaged on the same great field of politics,-it is, of course, impossible to avoid frequent allusion to the same topic under different heads. To make each memoir as nearly perfect in itself as possible, no other course could be pursued. But it will be found that allusions to the same general topic or debate are modified by the extent to which the subject under notice made the one or participated in the other.

iii

The opinions and speeches of every statesman on all prominent subjects of public interest are indicated or analyzed so as to present the principal features in the most unmistakable manner, in the hope that the volume will be the most useful, as it is the most extensive, of its kind, and a work of reference indispensable to men in every walk of life.

In the collection of the multitude of facts and dates to be found here, I have had, in addition to the authority of the ponderous archives of the Government, efficient aid from numerous distinguished political and literary gentlemen. Besides valuable references and documents, they furnished me with elaborate and authentic original details, which I have used with, trust, impartial freedom. Throughout the work many acknowledgments of indebtedness for such assistance are made; and I regret that the modest generosity of many prominent correspondents compels me to remain their silent debtor.

It may be proper to add that the articles describing certain scenes in the Senate during the great Kansas debate of March, 1858, were written on the spot, in full view of the occurrences related, by the present writer, during his connection with the Washington journal from which they are extracted.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

J. S.

CONTENTS.

NATHANIEL P. BANKS, OF MASSACHUSETTS..

.Page 17

Personal Character of the Literature of the Day-No Detailed Account of Mr. Banks's

Career-His Birth-Waltham, Lowell, and Manchester-Childhood, Factory-Life,

and Youth-Gerald Massey's Glimpse of Children in the English Factories-Tasting

of Knowledge-Village Debating-Society-N. P. Banks as Democratic Editor-Non-

Success-Determines to go to California-Elected to Massachusetts Legislature-

First Speech on Slavery Question-Success-Speaker of the Legislature-Agent of

the Board of Education-On the State Valuation Committee-Simultaneously elected