Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/151

JAMES KNOX POLK 115 recommendation, of the public warehousing system that has since proved so valuable an aid to the com merce of the country; the negotiation of the 35th article of the treaty with Grenada, ratified June 10, 1848, which secured for our citizens the right of way across the Isthmus of Panama; the postal treaty of December 15, 1848, with Great Britain, and the negotiations of commercial treaties with the secondary states of the Germanic confederation by which reciprocal relations were established and growing markets reached upon favorable terms. Mr. George Bancroft, the last surviving mem ber of Polk s cabinet, who carefully revised and enlarged this biography, in a communication to the editor, dated Washington, March 8, 1888, says: "One of the special qualities of Mr. Polk s mind was his clear perception of the character and doctrines of the two great parties that then divided the country. Of all our public men I say, dis tinctly, of all Polk was the most thoroughly con sistent representative of his party. He had no equal. Time and again his enemies sought for grounds on which to convict him of inconsistency, but so consistent had been his public career that the charge was never even made. Never fanciful or extreme, he was ever solid, firm, and consistent. His administration, viewed from the standpoint of results, was perhaps the greatest in our national history, certainly one of the greatest. He sue-