of Commodore Perry had swept the enemy's fleet from Lake Erie, which opened the way for General Harrison, under whom Cass served as aide-de-camp, and won distinction at the decisive Battle of the Thames. This victory left Cass military governor of Michigan, and the Territory was restored.

In October 1813, President Madison appointed Cass civil governor of the Territory of Michigan. This position involved not only the ordinary duties of chief magistrate of a civilized community, but the immediate management of relations with the numerous and powerful Indian tribes of the Great Lakes region. In 1815 Cass began negotiations with the Federal Government which resulted in an exploring expedition, begun in 1820, for the purpose of ascertaining the resources of the region and of cultivating friendly relations with the Indians. This expedition proceeded in a great circle, including the Lake Huron shore and the Sault, the Lake Superior country, the region of the headwaters of the Mississippi, and the site of the future Chicago. Michigan at this time included what is now Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa, and from this vast territory not a remonstrance came as Cass was successively appointed Governor of the Territory. During this long period he negotiated twenty-one Indian treaties with the tribes of the Northwest, preserving law and order, and advancing the Territory in population and prosperity.

In

In 1831 President Jackson appointed Cass a member of his cabinet, as Secretary of War, in which position he served for five years. 1836 Cass was appointed Minister to France, where he rendered eminent service to the United States and gained the respect and admiration of Europe. In particular he succeeded in defeating the attempt of Great Britain to gain by treaty the right of searching our vessels at sea. In 1842 he requested his recall, and returned to this country.

In 1845 Cass was elected to the United States Senate, but resigned in 1848 on his nomination for the Presidency. The next year he was re-elected to the Senate for the unexpired portion of his original term of six years. He was again elected in 1851, and served until 1857, when he entered the cabinet of President Buchanan as Secretary of State. From this position he resigned in 1860, owing to lack of sympathy with the views and methods of the President. He returned to Detroit, now a man of seventy-eight years, feeble and broken in health. He was greatly oppressed with the dangers which threatened the Government, and on April 25, 1861, he addressed a public meeting in Detroit upon the need of preserving the Union. He was destined to live to see the Union saved. He died in Detroit, June 17, 1866.

Michigan owes much to the unwearied exertions and generous patriot

ism of Lewis Cass. He was a man of fine physical vigor, of great intellectual power, and of strict integrity, brave in battle, calm and sagacious in council. He possessed a persuasive eloquence. His writings. speeches and state papers were finished and voluminous. Socially he was warm-hearted. As a citizen of Detroit he was interested in its growth and prosperity. The natural rise in the value of real estate owned by him there made him a large fortune for those days, but he was always hospitable and was highly esteemed. For more than sixty years he was a prominent figure in the life of the nation, and was almost uniformly successful in his undertakings.

MESSAGES

1824

June 7, 1824

From Journal of the Legislative Council, pp. 4-16

Fellow-Citizens of the Legislative Council,

I congratulate you and our fellow-citizens generally, upon the favorable change, which has taken place in the Legislative department of the Territorial Government. You are the first representative body, deriving its authority from the people, which has ever been convened in the Territory. The Legislative power, therefore exercised, has been vested in officers, over whom the people had no direct control. Authority thus held is certainly liable to abuse; but its practical operation was restrained and secured, as well by the limitations provided in the fundamental Ordinance, as by the spirit of our institutions, and the superintending control of the General Government. Still that change

in our political system, which gives to the people the right of electing their own Legislature, is not only correct in principle, but will be found most salutary in its operation.

The Territorial Governments of the United States are created for temporary and local objects. To preserve the peace of society in those sections of the national domain, whose resources are inadequate to defray the necessary expenses of their government, and where the population is too weak to justify admission into the Union. They terminate with the political majority, which many of these younger members of the republican family have already attained, and to which the others are rapidly approaching. Eight Territorial Governments have heretofore existed, which now constitute integral members of the confederacy; and some of them have increased in population and improvement, with a rapidity unparalleled in the history of nations. The natural advantages of this Territory, connected with the great improvements affecting it, which are making, without and within, warrant the opinion, that our own advance in all the elements of future greatness, will equal the progress of most of those Territories which have preceded us in this interesting political career, from infancy to maturity.

To those, whose knowledge of the history of this country is confined to the early date of its first settlement, and who are ignorant of the series of adverse events, which have checked its growth, it is a matter of surprise, that our population is yet so weak.-But it should be recollected, that under the French and British Governments, this was a remote portion of a remote colony, originally settled by adventurers in the fur trade. Agriculture and those arts which minister to it, were