Lewis Cass
| Lewis Cass | |
 | |
14th United States Secretary of War
| |
| In office August 1, 1831 – October 5, 1836 | |
| Preceded by | John Henry Eaton |
|---|---|
| Succeeded by | Joel Roberts Poinsett |
22nd United States Secretary of State
| |
| In office March 6, 1857 – December 14, 1860 | |
| Preceded by | William L. Marcy |
| Succeeded by | Jeremiah S. Black |
| Born | October 9, 1782 Exeter, New Hampshire, United States |
| Died | June 17,1866 Detroit, Michigan, United States |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Eliza Spencer Cass |
| Profession | Lawyer |
Lewis Cass (October 9, 1782 – June 17, 1866) was an American military officer and politician. He was the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States in 1848. His political agenda can be described as having endorsed a Jeffersonian political philosophy. Some of the principles reflecting the motivations behind his political actions include: the belief in individual liberty, popular sovereignty, equality of rights and opportunities for all citizens, and a strictly construed and balanced constitutional government of limited powers.
Early Life
Lewis Cass was born in Exeter, New Hampshire on October 9, 1782, to Jonathan and Mary Gilman Cass. The oldest of six children, he attended Phillips Exeter Academy (PEA), a boarding school established in 1781.
In 1806 Cass became a member of the Ohio House committee leading the investigation on the Burr conspiracy. Three years later, in 1809, he was selected to become a defense counselor in the trial for Ohio Supreme Court Justice George Tod.
During the War of 1812, Cass served as brigadier general fighting at the battle of the Thames. As a reward for his service in the war, he was appointed Governor of the Michigan Territory by President James Madison on October 29, 1813, and served until 1831.
A frequently absent governor, several territorial secretaries often served as acting governor in Cass's place. In 1820, he led an expedition to the northern part of the territory. He traversed the northern Great Lakes region (present-day northern Minnesota) in an attempt 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 Britain. 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.
From left to right: Jacob Thompson, Lewis Cass, John B. Floyd, James Buchanan, Howell Cobb, Isaac Toucey, Joseph Holt and Jeremiah S. Black, (c. 1859)
Political career
Along with John Forsyth, Theodore Frelinghuysen, and John Ross, Cass used strongly opinionated writings to influence a large portion of the public towards support of Indian removal, formally enacted in 1830; in particular, Cass wrote about his experiences with America's unwritten removal policy and his engagements with the Indians to date. A leading authority on the languages and cultures of the northern tribes, he argued that Indian emigration was necessary in order for them to survive and civilize without extreme pressure from Americans living near and among them. He was a central figure in formulating and implementing the Indian Removal policy of the Jackson administration.
On August 1, 1831, Cass resigned as governor of the Michigan Territory to take the post of Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, serving until 1836. From 1836 to 1842, he was also ambassador to France.
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 United States Congress. In 1848, he resigned from the Senate to run for President. 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.
After losing the 1848 election to Zachary Taylor, he returned to the Senate, serving from 1849 to 1857.
From 1857 to 1860, Cass served as Secretary of State under President James Buchanan. He resigned on December 13, 1860, reportedly disgusted by Buchanan's failure to pursue a stronger policy that might have averted the threatened secession of southern states.
American Indian Policy
In 1948 the Detroit Historical Society of Michigan reinstated their lecture series and named it in honor of Lewis Cass who was Governor of the Michigan Territory and one of the founders of the Detroit Historical Society Guild. The purpose of these lectures was to present a discussion on an aspect of Michigan’s history. Cass and his policies on American Indians were thought to be the appropriate subject for 1948. The lecture was presented by Francis Paul Prucha and was titled Lewis Cass and American Indian Policy. Prucha focused his discussion on how Cass successfully prevented the complete collapse of American Indian relations with the United States and described him as an "enlightened man of his times, and there was in him a strong, sincere, and persistent streak of humanitarianism."[1]
The following quote from Lewis Cass himself from his Considerations on the Present State of the Indians and their Removal to the West of the Mississppi demonstrates the concerns he held towards the conservation of the American Indian population amidst all the factors that contributed to their decline:
As we shall attempt eventually to prove, that the only means of preserving the Indians from that utter extinction which threatens them, is to remove them from the sphere of influence, we are desirous of showing, that no change has occurred, or probably can occur, in the principles of practice of our intercourse with them, by which the progress of their declension can be arrested, so long as they occupy their present situation.
Conclusion
He died in 1866 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Detroit, Michigan.
A statue of Cass is one of the two that was 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 Zachariah Chandler, which is in the Hall of Columns.)
Notes
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
1. Cass, Lewis. 1975. Considerations on the Present State of the Indians and their Removal to the West of the Mississippi. Arno Press.
2. Klunder, Willard Carl. 1996. ‘’Lewis Cass and the Politics of Moderation’’. The Kent State University Press. 3. Prucha, Francis Paul. 1967. Lewis Cass and American Indian Policy. Wayne State University Press.
External links
| Preceded by: William Hull |
Territoral Governor of Michigan 1813 – 1831 |
Succeeded by: George Bryan Porter |
| Preceded by: John Henry Eaton |
United States Secretary of War August 1, 1831 – October 5, 1836 |
Succeeded by: Joel Roberts Poinsett |
| Preceded by: Edward Livingston |
U.S. Ambassador to France October 4, 1836 – November 12, 1842 |
Succeeded by: William R. King |
| Preceded by: Augustus S. Porter |
United States Senator from Michigan March 4, 1845 – May 29, 1848 (alongside William Woodbridge and Alpheus Felch) |
Succeeded by: Thomas Fitzgerald |
| Preceded by: James K. Polk |
Democratic Party presidential candidate 1848 (lost) |
Succeeded by: Franklin Pierce |
| Preceded by: Thomas Fitzgerald |
United States Senator from Michigan January 20, 1849 – March 3, 1857 (alongside Alpheus Felch and Charles E. Stuart) |
Succeeded by: Zachariah Chandler |
| Preceded by: David Rice Atchison |
President pro tempore of the United States Senate December 4, 1854 |
Succeeded by: Jesse D. Bright |
| Preceded by: William L. Marcy |
United States Secretary of State March 6, 1857 – December 14, 1860 |
Succeeded by: Jeremiah S. Black |
Credits
New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:
The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:
Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.
