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Lewis Cass

lewis cass
united states senator

biography
Lewis Cass was born in Exter, New Hampshire, but about 1799 he left his home for Marietta, Ohio, where he entered the study of the law. He was admitted to the bar in December 1802 and soon after established himself at Zanesville, where he gradually acquired practice.

In 1806, Cass was elected to the Ohio legislature and served the first year of the second war with England and in 1813 he was appointed governor of the Michigan Territory, holding office until July 1831. Since Michigan at this time had no territorial legislature the business of selecting laws for it devolved on Governor Cass and the territorial judges. Governor Cass was also ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs for the territory, which then included the states of Michigan and Wisconsin. This remained for several years the most important part of his duties.

Of all of the territory, it was a small tract bordering on Lake Erie and the Detroit River to which the Indian title had not been distinguished. Within the bounds of his superintendency, he made to embrace all of the tribes northwest of Ohio. The recent hostilities and the distrust and suspicions of the Indians occassioned by the calls of ceding lad, the office led great difficulties. Governor Cass secured the affection of the Indians, and in 1817 he obtained a cession of most of the remaining Indian lands within the State of Ohio. This cession removed the Indian barrier in between the settlements of Ohio and Michigan.

In 1819 he met the Chippewas at Saginaw and obtained a cession of land in the peninsula of Michigan.At the suggestion of Governor Cass, an expedition was set on foot for 1820 for exploring the northern shore of Lake Superior and the course of the upper Mississippi.

The next year, by river navigation, he visited Chicago, then only a military post, and there made a treaty with the Chippewas, Ottawas and Potawatamies, by which a large tract of land was obtained, completing the extinction of the Indian title to the land.

In 1828 he made to treaties at Green Bay and at Saint Joseph’s which gave millions of acres to the United States. When President Jackson constructed his cabinet, Cass was appointed the Secretary of War. In 1836, he was appointed minister to France, a post which he held until 1842. He was on excellent terms with Louis Phillippe.

Cass was elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from 1845 to 1848, when he was the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate. He was defeated by the Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. He once again served in the Senate from 1849 to 1857 under which he was appointed Secretary of State by James Buchanan. Cass resigned the cabinet in 1860 when the president refused to reinforce Fort Sumter in Charleston.
 

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