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
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 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 29, 1813 – August 1, 1831
Appointed by	James Madison
Preceded by	William Hull
Succeeded by	George Porter
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
Personal details
Born	October 9, 1782(1782-10-09) Exeter, New Hampshire, United States
Died	June 17, 1866(1866-06-17) (aged 83) Detroit, Michigan, United States
Political party	Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Eliza Spencer
Profession	Lawyer
Signature
Military service
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1813–1814
Rank	Brigadier General
Battles/wars	War of 1812

Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782 – June 17, 1866) was an American military officer and politician. During his long political career, Cass served as a governor of the Michigan Territory, an American ambassador, a U.S. Senator representing Michigan, and co-founder as well as first Masonic Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Michigan. He was the losing nominee of the Democratic Party for president in 1848. Cass was nationally famous as a leading spokesman for the controversial Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which would have allowed voters in the territories to determine whether to make slavery legal instead of having Congress decide.

Early life

Cass was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he attended Phillips Exeter Academy. His parents were Major Jonathan Cass and Molly Gilman. In 1800 he moved with his family to Marietta, Ohio. On May 26, 1806, he married the former Elizabeth Spencer. Interested in "passing knowledge forward" Cass joined the Freemasons on May 7, 1804 and was later elected as the third Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Ohio on January 4, 1808. Later he went on to co-found the Grand Lodge of Michigan being elected as its first Grand Master on July 21, 1826.

Territorial governor

During the War of 1812, Cass served as a brigadier general and participated in the Battle of the Thames. As a reward for his service, he was appointed Governor of the Michigan Territory by President James Madison on October 29, 1813, and served until 1831. He was frequently absent, and several territorial secretaries often served as acting governor in his place.

In 1817, he was one of two commissioners (along with Duncan McArthur) who negotiated the Treaty of Fort Meigs, which was signed September 29 of that year with several Native American tribes.

In 1820, he led an expedition to the northern part of the territory, in the northern Great Lakes region in present-day northern Minnesota, in order to map the region and discover the source of the Mississippi River. The source of the river had been unknown until then, resulting in an undefined border between the United States and British North America. The expedition erroneously identified Cass Lake as the source of the river. The source of the river was correctly identified in 1832 by Henry Schoolcraft, who had been Cass's expedition geologist, as nearby Lake Itasca.

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 formulating and implementing the Indian removal policy of the Jackson administration. Next, Cass was appointed minister to France, a post he retained 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, who went on to win the presidential election.

Cass represented Michigan in the United States Senate 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. Cass was a leading supporter of the Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which held that the people who lived in a territory should decide whether or not to permit slavery there. 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.

Lewis Cass

After losing the election to Zachary Taylor, he returned 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. He was sympathetic to American filibusterers and was instrumental in having Commodore Hiram Paulding removed from command for his landing of Marines in Nicaragua and compelling the removal of William Walker to the United States. Cass resigned on December 13, 1860, because of 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.

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

His Great-Great Grandson Cass Ballenger was a U.S. Representative from North Carolina.

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

Commemoration

The Logo for the Lewis Cass Legacy Society

• A statue of Cass is one of the two that were submitted by Michigan to the National Statuary Hall collection in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. It stands in the National Statuary Hall room. (The other statue is of President Gerald Ford, the only U.S. president to come from Michigan.)
• The Liberty ship S.S. Lewis Cass
• Cass Technical High School in Detroit, Michigan is named after Cass, as are the Cass River and Cass City in the Thumb area of Michigan.
• Cass County, Texas was named for him, as Cass supported Texas' annexation into the United States.
• The Lewis Cass Legacy Society which supports The Michigan Masonic Charitable Foundation was named for his support of Michigan Freemasonry.

Publications

• Cass, Lewis (1840). France, its King, Court and Government. New York: Wiley and Putnam. http://books.google.com/books?id=VyE2AAAAMAAJ. 

See also

• List of places named for Lewis Cass
• Origins of the American Civil War

References

• Lewis Cass at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Klunder, Willard Carl. "Lewis Cass, Stephen Douglas, and Popular Sovereignty: The Demise of Democratic Party Unity," in Politics and Culture of the Civil War Era ed by Daniel J. McDonough and Kenneth W. Noe, (2006) pp. 129–53
• Silbey, Joel H. Party Over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Election of 1848 (2009), 205 pp.
• Bell, William Gardner (1992). "Lewis Cass". Secretaries of War and Secretaries of the Army. United States Army Center of Military History. CMH pub 70-12. http://www.history.army.mil/books/sw-sa/Cass.htm. 
• Elmwood Cemetery Biography

Ohio House of Representatives
New constituency	Representative from Washington, Gallia, Muskingum, and Athens Counties 1806–1807 Served alongside: Levi Barber, William Puthoff	Succeeded by John Bureau John Matthews James Palmer
Political offices
Preceded by William Hull	Territorial Governor of Michigan 1813–1831	Succeeded by George Porter
Preceded by John Eaton	United States Secretary of War Served under: Andrew Jackson 1831–1836	Succeeded by Joel Poinsett
Preceded by David Atchison	President pro tempore of the Senate 1854	Succeeded by Jesse Bright
Preceded by William Marcy	United States Secretary of State 1857–1860	Succeeded by Jeremiah Black
Diplomatic posts
Preceded by Edward Livingston	United States Minister to France 1836–1842	Succeeded by William King
United States Senate
Preceded by Augustus S. Porter	Senator from Michigan (Class 1) 1845–1848 Served alongside: William Woodbridge, Alpheus Felch	Succeeded by Thomas Fitzgerald
Preceded by Thomas Fitzgerald	Senator from Michigan (Class 1) 1849–1857 Served alongside: Alpheus Felch, Charles Stuart	Succeeded by Zachariah Chandler
Party political offices
Preceded by James Polk	Democratic nominee for President of the United States 1848	Succeeded by Franklin Pierce