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 supported, and by people of all classes. For the masses, who saw him and who knew him, only as he appeared on the platform, there was an inspiration in his presence and in his speeches, and for his associates and friends there was a generous companionship which none could resist--which none wished to resist. In his private life there was no malice in his intercourse with men; in the strife of war there was no vindictiveness in spirit nor in the means of prosecuting war. A patriotic man, who trusted the people, and a man whom the people trusted; a brave soldier, who retained the confidence of his troops, and of his superiors in all the vicissitudes of war; a friend whose friendship was not changed nor tempered by the changing events of life. Such was General Banks to many and to myself, his companion, and often co-worker, and always friend through a lengthened half century.