Lewis Cass

Lewis Cass
22nd United States Secretary of State
In office
March 6, 1857 – December 14, 1860
President James Buchanan
Preceded by William Marcy
Succeeded by Jeremiah Black
38th President pro tempore of the Senate
In office
December 4, 1854 – December 5, 1854
President Franklin Pierce
Preceded by David Atchison
Succeeded by Jesse Bright
United States Senator
from Michigan
In office
March 4, 1849 – March 4, 1857
Preceded by Thomas Fitzgerald
Succeeded by Zachariah Chandler
In office
March 4, 1845 – May 29, 1848
Preceded by Augustus Porter
Succeeded by Thomas Fitzgerald
United States Ambassador to France
In office
October 4, 1836 – November 12, 1842
Appointed by Andrew Jackson
Preceded by Edward Livingston
Succeeded by William King
14th United States Secretary of War
In office
August 1, 1831 – October 4, 1836
President Andrew Jackson
Preceded by John Eaton
Succeeded by Joel Poinsett
2nd Territorial Governor of Michigan
In office
October 13, 1813 – August 1, 1831
(Military Governor from October 13 to October 29)
Appointed by James Madison
Preceded by William Hull
Succeeded by George Porter
Member of the Ohio House of Representatives from Washington, Gallia, Muskingum and Athens counties
In office
1806–1807
Preceded by New constituency
Succeeded by John Bureau
John Matthews
James Palmer
Personal details
Born (1782-10-09)October 9, 1782
Exeter, New Hampshire, United States
Died June 17, 1866(1866-06-17) (aged 83)
Detroit, Michigan, United States
Political party Democratic Party
Spouse(s) Elizabeth "Eliza" Spencer Cass
Profession Military Officer
Signature
Military service
Service/branch United States Army
Years of service 1812–1814
Rank Brigadier General
Battles/wars War of 1812

Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782 – June 17, 1866) was an American military officer, politician, and statesman: he was longtime governor of the Michigan Territory (1813–1831), Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, and Secretary of State under President James Buchanan. During his long political career, Cass served as an American ambassador to France, and as a U.S. Senator representing Michigan. A Mason from his years as a young man in Ohio, Cass was co-founder of the Grand Lodge of Michigan and its first Masonic Grand Master.

Cass was nationally known in the late antebellum period as a leading spokesman for the controversial Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty. It proposed allowing voters in the United States territories to determine whether to allow slavery in each jurisdiction rather than having Congress determine this. In 1848 Cass ran as a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party but lost to Zachary Taylor.

Early life, marriage and Freemasonry

Cass was born in 1782 in Exeter, New Hampshire, just after the end of the American Revolutionary War. He attended the private Phillips Exeter Academy. His parents were Major Jonathan Cass, a Revolutionary War veteran, and Molly Gilman. In 1800 the family moved to Marietta, Ohio, part of a wave of westward migration after the end of the war and defeat of Native Americans in the Northwest Indian War.

On May 26, 1806, Cass married Elizabeth Spencer.[1] He joined the Freemasons, an increasingly popular fraternal organization in that period, being initiated as an Entered Apprentice in what is now American Union Lodge No.1 at Marietta on December 5, 1803.[2] He achieved his Fellowcraft degree on April 2, 1804, and his Master Mason degree on May 7, 1804. On June 24, 1805, he was admitted as Charter member of Lodge of Amity 105 (now No.5), Zanesville. He served as the first Worshipful Master of Lodge of Amity in 1806.[2]

Cass was one of the founders of the Grand Lodge of Ohio, representing Lodge of Amity at the first meeting on January 4, 1808. He was elected Deputy Grand Master on January 5, 1809, and Grand Master on January 3, 1810, January 8, 1811, and January 8, 1812.[2] In 1807, he became the US Marshal for Ohio.

War of 1812

When the War of 1812 began against Great Britain, he took command of the 3rd Ohio Volunteer Regiment. He became colonel of the 27th United States Infantry Regiment on February 20, 1813. Soon after, he was promoted to brigadier general in the Regular Army on March 12, 1813. Cass took part in the Battle of the Thames, a defeat of British Canadian forces. Cass resigned from the Army on May 1, 1814. Overall, the war closed in, essentially, a draw, but settled the boundary between Canada and the United States.

Territorial governor of Michigan

As a reward for his military service, Cass was appointed Governor of the Michigan Territory by President James Madison on October 29, 1813, serving until 1831. As he was frequently traveling on business, several territorial secretaries often acted as governor in his place. During this period, he helped negotiate and implement treaties with Native American tribes in Michigan, by which they ceded substantial amounts of land. Some were given small reservations in the territory.

In 1817, Cass was one of the two commissioners (along with Duncan McArthur), who negotiated the Treaty of Fort Meigs, which was signed September 29 with several Native American tribes of the region, under which they ceded large amounts of territory to the United States.[1] This helped open up areas of Michigan to settlement by European Americans. That same year, Cass was named to serve as Secretary of War under President James Monroe, but he declined the honor.

In 1820, Cass led an expedition to the northwestern part of the Michigan Territory, in the Great Lakes region in today's northern Minnesota. Its purpose was to map the region and locate the source of the Mississippi River. The headwater of the great river was then unknown, resulting in an undefined border between the United States and British North America, which had been linked to the river. The Cass expedition erroneously identified what became known as Cass Lake as the Mississippi's source. It was not until 1832 that Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the Cass expedition's geologist, identified nearby Lake Itasca as the headwater of the Mississippi.

Later political career

On August 1, 1831, Cass resigned as governor of the Michigan Territory to take the post of Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, a position he would hold until 1836. Cass was a central figure in implementing the Indian removal policy of the Jackson administration; Congress had passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. While it was directed chiefly against the Southeastern tribes, especially the Five Civilized Tribes, it also affected tribes in Ohio, Illinois and other areas east of the Mississippi River. Most were forced to Indian Territory in present-day Kansas and Oklahoma, but a number of bands negotiated being allowed to remain in Michigan.

Next, Cass was appointed minister to France, serving until 1842.

In the 1844 Democratic convention Cass stood as a candidate for the presidential nomination, losing on the 9th ballot to dark horse candidate James K. Polk.

Lewis Cass

Cass was elected by the state legislature to represent Michigan in the United States Senate, serving from 1845 to 1848. He served as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the 30th Congress.

In 1848, he resigned from the Senate to run for president. William Orlando Butler was his running mate.[3] Cass was a leading supporter of the doctrine of popular sovereignty, which held that the people who lived in a territory should decide whether to permit slavery there.[4] His nomination caused a split in the Democratic party, leading many antislavery Democrats to join the Free Soil Party. He also supported the annexation of Texas, which the US completed that year. Slavery supporters were eager to gain another slave state.

After losing the election to Zachary Taylor, Cass was returned by the state house to the Senate, serving from 1849 to 1857. He was the first non-incumbent Democratic presidential candidate to lose an election.

From 1857 to 1860, Cass served as Secretary of State under President James Buchanan.[1] While sympathetic to American filibusters in Central America, he was instrumental in having Commodore Hiram Paulding removed from command for his landing of Marines in Nicaragua and compelling the extradition of William Walker to the United States.[5]

Cass resigned on December 13, 1860, because of what he considered Buchanan's failure to protect federal interests in the South and failure to mobilize the federal military, actions that might have averted the threatened secession of Southern states.[6]

Cass died in 1866. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.

Legacy

His daughter, Isabella Cass, married Theodorus Marinus Roest van Limburg (1806–1887), Dutch ambassador in the USA (1856–1868) and Foreign Minister (1868–1870).

His great-great grandson Cass Ballenger was a U.S. Representative from North Carolina.

Jen Cass, a Michigan-based attorney, activist and singer-songwriter, is Lewis Cass' great-great-great-grandniece.

Commemoration

Lewis Cass Legacy Society logo

Other honors and memberships

Elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1820.[9]

Publications

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Heidler, David S., and Heidler, Jeanne T. (eds) (2004). Encyclopedia of the War of 1812, pp. 83-84. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-362-4.
  2. 1 2 3 "Past Grand Masters - 1810 Lewis Cass". Grand Lodge of Ohio. Retrieved 2012-12-21.
  3. ↑ Kleber, John E. (ed.) (1992). The Kentucky Encyclopedia, p. 146. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-1772-0, ISBN 978-0-8131-1772-0.
  4. ↑ Klunder, Willard Carl (1996). Lewis Cass and the Politics of Moderation, pp. 266–67. Kent State University Press. ISBN 0-87338-536-5, ISBN 978-0-87338-536-7.
  5. ↑ Collier, Ellen C. (1993) "Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798 - 1993" CRS Issue Brief Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, Washington DC
  6. ↑ Cass's resignation statement, quoted in McLaughlin, Andrew Cunningham (1899) Lewis Cass Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, pp. 345–346, OCLC 4377268, (standard library edition, first edition was published in 1891)
  7. ↑ The History of Miami County, Ohio: Containing a History of the County; Its Cities, Towns, Etc. Windmill Publications. 1880. p. 396.
  8. ↑ Kenny, Hamill (1945). West Virginia Place Names: Their Origin and Meaning, Including the Nomenclature of the Streams and Mountains. Piedmont, WV: The Place Name Press. p. 159.
  9. ↑ American Antiquarian Society Members Directory

Further reading

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Cass, Lewis.

External links

Lewis Cass at Find a Grave

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