[southernsunshine]

BroJo said: However, at no point in the speech did Banks hint at anything whatever having to do with either national politics or southerners.

Not in that one he doesn't, but don't worry it's coming. I just haven't gotten that far down in my pile yet.

While you're waiting, here's one of Banks's September, 1857 speeches that does touch on national politics and Southerners. He's put out becuase money is spent on Southerners in the Army and Navy, but the Southerners want to eliminate the bounties paid to fishermen. And heaven forbid! the route to the Pacific takes a Southern route, etc., etc., etc. He also says they must combine the material and moral interests. As if the Yanks were the moral ones. LOL!

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hx4pz1#page/n0/mode/1up

[BroJoeK]

southernsunshine: "While you're waiting, here's one of Banks's September, 1857 speeches that does touch on national politics and Southerners"

First of all, thanks for the link.
You seem to have inherited rusty's talents for finding actual source material, not just reports on reports. ;-)

Second, these words from Banks' in September 1857 are obviously a campaign speech -- in his first and successful run for Massachusetts governor.

And quite frankly, I like this guy!
To me he sounds just like a Republican should have sounded in those days, and for the most part, even today.
I mean, how can you do better than this? --

• "I intend religiously to support the union of the States; the principles on which it was organized, and the Constitution by which it is maintained.
  
• I demand for the North, and will accede to the South, all that can be claimed under the Constitution.
  
• I regard free labor ["free labor" means non-slave labor, not people who work "for free"] as the corner-stone of our prosperity, and the observance of the reserved rights of the States as the foundation of our success as a government.
  
• I resist an interference with slave labor in the States where it exists, but I am inflexibly opposed to its extension, to the admission of other slave States, or the acquisition of territory for the formation of slave States.
  
• I entertain no doubt of the power of Congress to prohibit slavery in the territories, or that it ought to exerciser that power.
  
• I protest against the usurpation of the Courts [i.e., Dred Scot], in assuming to decide as judicial questions propositions which are in their nature, and from the foundation of the government have always been regardesd as popular and political questions.
  
• As your Representative, I will demand that something of the power of the government of the States shall be directed to the development of Christian-like and civilizing industrial interests, rather than to the re-institution of barbaric customs and the propagandism of African slavery..."

So how could you not vote for this guy in 1857?
And wait until you read what he said about the old partisan press and immigration issues of his time.
So far as I know, that's pretty much what Republicans have been from the beginning.

But, nowhere in this 1857 speech does Banks suggest the Federal government should abolish slavery in slave-states, or that military force should be used to accomplish that.

Any of that kind of talk only arrived later, after secessionists began rebelling and making war on the United States.