Lewis Cass

Front matter

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AMERICAN STATESMEN

EDITED BY

Preface To The Revised Edition

This volume does not pretend to give a com- j

plete and detailed account of the life of Lewis \

Cass. Even some of tlie more important facts in his public career are omitted, or only alluded to in passing. He has been studied as a representative of the old Northwest, and one of the chief purposes of the book is to show the development of that section, to trace the growth of its political life. Evidently this could not be done in detail ; all the manifestations of the Western spirit could not be dwelt upon, nor was it possible to estimate exactly the power and influence of Western sentiment in the councils of the nation, or to weigh accurately the Western ingredient in our national character. But students of American history have come to see that the course of events is not explicable if one pays attention to the work and the principles of Eastern men alone, and I am led to believe that, by studying the career of a man who thoroughly embodied for many years the nature of the newer West as it was before the civil war, I may have thrown some light upon the general history of vi PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION

the United States. Whether I have succeeded in this or not, one may say with confidence that a series of American statesmen would not be complete if it did not contain the biography of a typical Northwestern man, and show some appreciation of the fact that one of America's heaviest tasks and greatest achievements was to transform a wilderness into populous, organized communities, and that, as years went by, this Western country, full of eager, active, energetic men, who were made by natural circumstances self-confident and assertive, impressed itself upon the national life, and did something to shape the destinies of the United States. Some of the acts of Cass, which I believed, when preparing the first edition of this book, were due in large measure to personal characteristics or peculiarities, I have come to look upon as somewhat representative. His continuous, unbending o^jposition to England, for example, seems to have been a part of the exuberant patriotic enthusiasm of the West; and coupled with this was the feeling of " manifest destiny," which undoubtedly influenced him when considering such questions as the annexation of Texas and the " re-occupation " of the whole of Oregon.

In the preparation of this revised edition, I have not thought it best to make many changes. I have added something to the text of the first edition,

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION vii

ill and have made a few clianges that seemed to me to be desirable. I have altered slightly the account of the surrender of Hull, thinking that the statement did not make sufficient allowance for the difficulties with which he was surrounded, and that it did not sufficiently take into consideration the fact that to some extent he was the victim of an incompetent military administration. But on the whole the judgments of the earlier edition must stand as they were first written.

Little material was found ready at hand for writing this biography, and I have been somewhat hampered by not having the correspondence or any considerable quantity of the private papers of Cass. Mr. W. L. G. Smith, while writing " The Life and Times of Lewis Cass," seems to have had access to a diary kept by Cass when on a tour to Greece and the farther East. Of the original I have found no trace, and have felt at liberty to refer to Mr. Smith's excerpts. In other particulars the pages of the public documents and of established authorities have furnished me with materials. I have not attempted to strengthen my assertions by reference to my sources of information ; but in a few instances I have indicated by a footnote the material used, when I have consciously taken a suggestion from a secondary writer or borrowed a phrase or statement of fact. Occaviii PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION

sionally a novel or important assertion has been supported by a reference to authority.

To those who are unacquainted with the details of the life of Cass, it may seem that I have given him praise where none was due, and at times made forced and unjustifiable excuses. This is the natural failing of a biographer ; but I believe now, as I did when preparing the first edition, that on the whole my estimate is not far from right, although I admit, of course, that I may be mistaken, knowing how difficult is the task of forming such a judgment. While preparing the book I conferred with political foes of Cass as well as political friends, and found a remarkable consensus of opinion. I am not ready to believe that, if he was, as is often charged, a time-server and a " doughface," bartering the approval of his conscience in exchange for political preferment, the men whom I consulted, and whom I knew to be men of probity and sound judgment, who were well acquainted with Cass in his lifetime, and some of whom were his earnest political opponents, would have had unswerving confidence in his sincerity. I may venture here to call the attention of the reader to a fact mentioned in the text and given on the testimony of the late Alpheus Felch, that the Michigan delegation in Congress approved of the Nicholson letter before it was published, which

PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION ix

certainly is an indication that it was not a mere political subterfuge, but was the expression of honest opinion.

In the preparation of this book I received valuable suggestions from James V. Campbell, Isaac P. Christiancy, George V. N. Lothrop, and Alpheus Felch. AU these persons were well acquainted with the public career of Cass, and three of them knew him intimately. I obtained some material through the kindness of the late Charles H. Bell of Exeter, New Hampshire. Grateful acknowledgments are also due to Professor Isaac N. Demmon, and to Professor Thomas M. Cooley, the learned writer on Michigan history.

ANDREW c. McLaughlin.

Univeksitt of Michigan, April 18, 1898.

Contents

CHAP. fA«^

I. The Old Northwest 1

II. Early Life 34

Chapter I The Old Northwest

The five States north of the Ohio Kiver form an historical and a geogi-aphical unit. They have their individual peculiarities, but possess common traditions and doubtless a common destiny. Their history does not begin with the Ordinance of 1787. Lons: before this characteristic American constitution was passed, or the Puritan of New England sought a new home west of the Alleghanies, this portion of our country had its records and its annals. In its later development under American auspices it felt the fashioning influences of the past. Tendencies strengthened by age cannot be counteracted in a moment. Time and trial are necessary elements in such a transformation as that which rejuvenated the old Northwest, filled it with vigor, with energetic American life and modern zeal for industry and political activity. The United States was the third power to occupy it. The earlier tenures by France and England furnished obstacles in the way of later American progress.

The Northwest is the first foster child of the Eepublic. The principles of Americanism now seem inborn and inbred; but foster child it is, and its growth has been influenced by its parentage and early training. Into parts of the country north of the Ohio the people from the South and East came suddenly and in swarms, which changed the face of nature so quickly that the historian has been content with exclamation. But Michigan was not thus re-clothed and energized in a moment. Wisconsin lagged and shuffled in her progress. Even Illinois and Indiana were slightly retarded by inherited incumbrances. It is true that "north of the Ohio the regular array went first," ^ and the settler followed in its wake. But the regular army does not transform and renovate or sweep away on its bayonets the customs of a century's growth.

American statesmanship is not confined to waging political warfare or to winning victories of diplomacy. A good portion of the life of Lewis Cass was spent in striving to Americanize Michigan and other portions of the Northwest, to introduce popular government, modern methods of legal procedure, modern habits of life, modern civilization. In the development of Michigan from territorial confusion and uncertainty to the order of statehood, there were constant exertions to overcome inertia and to break away from the sluggish forces of the past. While guiding and directing ^ Roosevelt, Winning of the West, vol. i. p. 24.

these exertions, while inculcating democratic ideas, while holding forth attractions to settlers, while struggling for the independence of the Northwest against British aggressions, Cass was performing the work of a national statesman and his efforts were of national concern.

Popular government was but slowly introduced into a territory which had been long contentedly under the sway of absolutism. Sault de Ste. Marie was established fourteen years before Philadelphia; Detroit but nineteen years after her Quaker sister. And yet, a hundred and twenty-five years after Penn begged his colonists not to be "so governmentish," the inhabitants of Michigan were living without capacity to appreciate or desire to know the delights of political controversies, which were so dear to the Americans of the coast. For more than a century after the exploration of the Northwest its history pertained to that of Canada, and that portion of the country, which was first settled and first came under Canadian influence, was the last to free itself from trammels of Celtic bondage and provincial ignorance.

The French with gracious ease seemed to insinuate themselves into the western country, following the watercourses as great highways to the unexplored interior. Long before the Institutional Englishman plodded his way westward to the Alleghanies, the Frenchman had traversed the country of the Great Lakes and the Mississippi valley, and was familiar with the haunts o£ the beaver. The proselyting spirit of religion and the spirit of trade vied with each other in efforts to lead the way. Early in the seventeenth century, EecoUet fathers landed at Quebec, prepared to begin a work of conversion among the Indians. Five years before the founding of Plymouth Champlain knew something of the great West. Gradually, by way of the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay, the Western country was discovered, French soldier or priest boldly entering unexplored rivers or skirting the coasts of unknown lakes with calm courage or with a simple faith which drove out fear. Wisconsin was known before Rhode Island was settled; and the hardy Jesuits began their work in northern Michigan before Puritanism had more than emerged from behind its stockades in a corner of rocky New England.

But the Iroquois could not be charmed by chanted vespers nor softened by Christian influence. The priest endured tortures and prayed without ceasing and without avail. Had he been successful, the Indians of western New York and northern Ohio would have been won over to purposes of French statecraft. They would have become an implacable enemy to Dutch aggression, an impassable barrier to the advance of English traders. As it was, England's enemies were pushed northwest into the upper lake region, and the Ohio valley was kept by the savage, until the English farmer, in response to demands of trade and agriculture, carried with him over the mountains the Penates of a constitutional state. Ohio had no history until the American colonist was ready to enter the country, ready to establish there real nerve centres of English influence, real vital and life-giving homes of English politics and English civilization.

There is nothing more interesting in the course of history. The heathen and savage guarded till the fuUness of time a land destined to become the home of American constitutionalism, not to be blighted by imposed governments ordained by Richelieu and the state-absorbing monarchs of France. Long after Illinois and Wisconsin were known and their rivers described with some pretense at accuracy, Ohio was a terra incognita, the shores of Lake Erie unknown, the Ohio and the Wabash confused. Not till after the middle of the last century was there anything like an accurate knowledge of that portion of the Northwest which was nearest to English settlements and naturally the most accessible to the French. Even the Connecticut Land Company in 1796 found, by its surveys, that the Connecticut Reserve had a million acres less than geographical ignorance had anticipated. 1 This explains to some extent why the occupancy of Ohio, signalized by the landing of the "new pilgrims," at Marietta, differs from the occupation of many other portions of the Northwest.

1 Hinsdale, The Old Northwest.

Neither the daring voyages of Hennepin, whose lies reveal a glimmer of truth and cloud an enviable reputation, nor the explorations of Joliet and Marquette need be recounted here. The journey of La Salle, who in 1682 floated his canoe down the Mississippi and took possession of the country in the name of King Louis, proclaimed the birth of New France with its two heads, as Parkman has so graphically expressed it, one in the canebrakes of Louisiana and the other amid the snows of Canada. But the task of connecting these two heads, of vitalizing the whole monster, of filling its veins with life-giving blood, was difficult and in the end impossible. Efforts were strenuously made to hold firmly the portions first known to French influence. Jesuits and traders settled in Wisconsin and Michigan. In 1671 Saint-Lusson, in solemn fashion, in presence of Indian braves and Frenchmen at the Sault, took possession of the surrounding country with overawing pomj) and splendor. The great historian of French America may well suggest that all that remains of this pompous sovereignty is the "accents of France on the lips of some straggling boatman or vagabond half-breed." Yet this occupancy meant the introduction of French ideas, of French methods and policy of state, of French civilization guarded or retarded by the dictates of an absolute monarch. It meant that a century and a half was to pass before Michigan could cast aside her foreign trappings and take her place as a prosperous American territory with progressive American ideas. Ohio, which hardly knew the face of a white man until the New Englander came over the mountains with school-book and hymnal in his hands, was ready for statehood in fifteen years from that immigration. Michigan had to serve a dreary and necessary tutelage of nearly one hundred and seventy-five years from its first settlement before it struggled irregularly to its place beside the neighboring States. Wisconsin, discovered by the pushing fur trader two hundred and fifty years ago, has seen only within the last half century the beginnings of agricultural and manufacturing life.

The fur trade induced the French to take possession of Michigan and to hold it against all English aggression. Late in the seventeenth century there were efforts on the part of the English of New York to attract the Indians with Engflish goods and rum, but all efforts to turn the fur trade from Montreal to New York were unavailing. If these attempts had been successful, the history of the northern lake region would have been totally different. Michigan would L~-e been an English colony before Georgia, and in all probability would not for a century have lagged behind that State in progress. Nothing but concentrated and patriotic action could win the Northwest to England. For Louis XIV. took thought for the fur trade, and every element of Canadian progress or failure was of interest to him. He "subsidized nearly every branch of trade and industry, and in other instances did for the colonists what they would far better have learned to do for themselves." ^ Whatever revenue he obtained from Canada was derived from the fur trade, and this trade must be supported by the power and cunning of France. He was ready to salve his conscience with the statement that brandy not only secured the trade of Indians but drew them from English Protestantism within the blessed influences of the true religion.'^ Yet the Northwest was really held for France by those whom Governor Denonville himself described as the damaging element in Canadian life. The fur trade was " hardy, adventurous, fascinating." Every effort was made to keep it under the control of the government, that the king might find remuneration for vast outlays and that the colonists might not feel its fascinations too strongly. Trade was put in a straight- jacket and chained to Montreal; monopoly succeeded monopoly in successive failures. But trade is aggressive if it exists at all, and it broke from its fastenings and flung away restraints. The Indians were intercepted on their way to Montreal, were "drenched with brandy," and their beaver skins bought for a song. Finally the adventurous and reckless among the settlers fled to the western woods, where they might live or trade as they desired. These law-breakers did now for France the work which

1 Parkman's Old Regime in Canada, p. 284.

she was not quite ready to do for herself. These wandering bush-rangers held the Northwest against the English, and became the first white settlers of the Northern States. The English of New York were feeling their way in the direction of the fur country, and even before the end of the seventeenth century the Northwest might have fallen into the grasping clutches of English trade, to be settled by Englishmen and ruled with English methods, if the hardy, lawless coureur des bois had not pushed his way into the coveted country.

The bush-rangers hated England and adored the France whose laws they disregarded. They established trading posts throughout the wilderness some years before they made the attempt at permanent settlement. With an accurate knowledge of the topography of the country they took positions which in later years have been singled out for purposes of trade as well as defensive warfare. Du Lhut established a post on the northern shore of Lake Superior to prevent the possible approach of the Hudson Bay Company from the north. Governor Denonville was obliged to ask this man, who at one time was in danger of attracting all the youths of New France to the woods, to fortify the straits as a barrier to English advance in the South. In spite of restrictive laws and the displeasure of Louis himself, who, with a natural love of order and method, was sorely annoyed at the irregularities of the straggling coureurs des bois, who seemed to be destroying his fondest hopes of systematic and concentrated settlement along the St. Lawrence; in spite also of hardships and privations, the reckless bush-rangers increased in nmnbers, until it was said that every family of quality in Canada could count its friends and relatives among the rollicking outlaws, while the despairing English, longing for the beaver of Michigan, announced that they too must have "bush lopers."

A "picturesque" element were these men in the life of early Canada, picturesque on their return to brawl and gamble in the settlements after a long, successful journey of fur himting, and "artistic,"^ as with courage and reckless thoughtlessness they made their way into the western wilderness. But they were more than picturesque and artistic. They early influenced the savages to hate the English, and to look upon the French as their allies, and this was of vast importance in the after efforts for domination. Moreover, with a marvelous adaptability, many assumed Indian habits and ingratiated themselves by becoming Indians. After years of law-breaking or wood-ranging, unused to the amenities of civilization or the restraints of law, they settled through the western country with Indian wives or concubines, raised a brood of half-breed children, and passed their days in worse than savage idleness.

When the time came to change French for Eng-

1 Parkman'a Old Regime in Canada, lish control, the Indians reluctantly consented, and down to tlie middle of the present century, although the British were generally preferred to the Americans, the French were greatly preferred to either. "Whatever may have been the reason," said Governor Cass, "the fact is certain that there is in the French character peculiar adaptations to the habits and feelings of the Indians, and to this day the period of French domination is the era of all that is happy in Indian reminiscences."^ At the Sault de Ste. Marie, in 1826, a Chippewa chief, addressing the American agent, thus pathetically referred to the happy days of the French dominion in the West: "When the Frenchmen arrived at these falls they came and kissed us. They called us children and we found them fathers. We lived like brethren in the same lodge, and we had always wherewithal to clothe us. They never mocked at our ceremonies, and they never molested the places of our dead. Seven generations of men have passed away, but we have not forgotten it. Just, very just, were they towards us."^

"The French empire in America," says Parkman, "could exhibit among its subjects every shade of color from white to red, every gradation of culture from the highest civilization of Paris to the rudest barbarism of the wigwam." ^ The savoir vivre of these people displayed itself. With

1 Historical Sketches of Michigan, p. 24.

2 Mrs. Jameson, Winter Studies, etc. p. 130. 8 Conspiracy of Pontiac, p. 69.

their influence over the Indians and their traditions of inertia, their hatred of innovation and their utter lack of ability to understand constitutional principles or legal procedure, they formed a conditioning element in the development of the West. An experienced observer writing in 1845 assures us that the average French-Canadian voyageur had less perception and general intellectual capacity than his Indian companion.^ These men, and their fathers before them, living in ignorance, fell to a plane below the ignorant savage with whom they mingled. At the present day the half-breeds form a large shiftless element among the woodsmen of the northern lake region. Many of these bush-rangers, leading Indian lives, were scattered among the western tribes, but besides these a large number of watermen, retired from active employment, formed rude settlements along the streams and bays which open into the great lakes. Here in imambitious content they spent their lives and perpetuated their lazy characteristics in a numerous progeny. Often Indian wives tilled the fields while the gossiping voyageur smoked away the day. In some of the more regular settlements there were French women, and though there was a remarkable ignorance of agricultural methods, the men succeeded in raising enough to keep their families in comfort.

The first settlements in Wisconsin were all of this irregular kind. Retired watermen, in their

narrow farms fronting the river, lived in blissful ignorance of any aim in life except to live. The coureur des bois settled thus as fancy dictated. Such an irresponsible settlement was the one at Prairie du Chien. And a like settlement gradually grew up at Green Bay, begun near the middle of the last century, and slowly augmented by the advent of unemployed engagees. Their small farms were tiUed with care sufficient to secure the necessary crops of wheat and peas. At the beginning of this century it was impossible to tell what blood flowed in the veins of the settlers. There was only one woman, we are told, in the latter settlement who pretended to be "all white," and she had been "accidentally" imported. Nevertheless the manners of these simple people were fascinating, for in spite of the admixture of the blood of the red man, who has his own dignity and stately ease, they never lost the graces of old France. Here at Green Bay there were good examples of what these semi-French conceived to be government. Many are the amusing stories of how Justice Reaume, in patriarchal fashion, enforced his own sweet will as the law of the land. Well on in the present century, when Wisconsin was fairly under American government and there was an effort to introduce popular methods, this curious old justice knew much more of Coutume de Paris than of the common law. His jackknife in the hands of an extemporized constable performed the functions of a common seal, and he gave his unique decisions in his broad French or broken English without reference to anything but the law of prejudice.

Turning to Michigan, we find there various settlements of this kind, founded under similar conditions; but these did not become centres of growth and development under the French regime. Michigan was the home of the beaver, and the French authorities soon realized the importance of securing this portion of the West by responsible settlements. La Motte Cadillac seems first to have entertained the idea of making "the straits" a centre of French control in the West, to defend the fur trade, prevent English encroachments, and assure permanent influence over the neighboring Indian tribes. Already renowned as a faithful officer and soldier, he at last gained the end of his desires, and in 1701 reached Detroit with his company of soldiers and artisans. These early settlers were not lowborn or lawless. Everything was conducted in an orderly and systematic manner, imder the auspices of government. The slur passed upon the citizens of Detroit by Governor Hull and Judge Woodward in October, 1805, was a needless one. "When it is remembered," they said, "that the troops of Louis XIV. came without women, the description of persons constituting the second generation wiU not be difficult to conceive."^ La Hontan's graphic description of how women were sent over in cargoes to become 1 Michigan Pioneer Col., vol. viii. p. 404.^ the wives of the Canadian settlers is well known. Mother Mary, not entirely pleased with such consignments of mixed goods ("wwe marchandaise melee^\ complained of ^^beaucoup de scandale.^^ Doubtless Canada has been feebly blessed by these persons and their descendants. But such were not the early settlers of Detroit. The whole history of that city shows that the residents were of no mean birth, surely not in a demoralized condition, or from a low and depraved ancestry. Into various portions of Canada many respectable and even noble persons immigrated, and the permanent settlements of Michigan were not less favored.

For various reasons Detroit developed bvit slowly after this auspicious foundation. At times the French authorities were unfriendly to colonization. They were encouraged in their hostility by the missionaries on the one hand, who feared the vices of civilization, and who desired that the Indians should come in contact with none but themselves, and by the fur trader on the other, who was naturally averse to the advance of the homes of men into the midst of the lodges of the beaver. Moreover there was no instinctive appreciation of the fitness of things. Land was granted under the most absurd feudal restrictions, so to be held until American practical sense disposed of the absurdities. The place was, however, a centre of French influence in the West, and gradually assumed permanence and a degree of prosperity. It was not an iU-formed, straggling village, where rough watermen and half-breeds passed their lazy lives. We have reason to believe that from the first there was comfort, and occasionally even an approach to elegance, in the houses that clustered in and around the stockade. For some of the early townsmen were artisans, who desired by work and by a very moderate thrift to establish themselves and their families in comfort. It will not do, however, to banish entirely from the colony the picturesque bush-ranger. The town, which had been placed in the very midst of his hunting grounds, was often visited when savings were to be squandered in merriment and riot; the descendants of these happy trappers and watermen were the boatmen of the earlier part of this century ; their frail canoes carried Cass to many a treaty ground, from Detroit to the head of Lake Superior, to Green Bay or Chicago.

Seventy-five years ago Detroit was still a French settlement, and fifteen years ago its French characteristics were evident to the stranger in a casual visit to the city. The few Scotch who came in during the latter years of the English dominion affiliated with the French and appreciated their conservatism. In consequence of this ancestry, there has always been a steadiness and sobriety in business and a caution and reserve in society. It has not felt until recently the stir of American life as has Buffalo, or Cleveland placed in the heart of "New Connecticut." It can scarcely be doubted that conservative French Catholicism has had its influence in giving a peculiar tone and setting a dignified pace. It is true that after Detroit had been ostensibly an American city for forty years, the introduction of New England life gave the town a look of prosperity and activity which was lacking to the Canadian towns across the river. But the comparison rather accentuates than contradicts the previous assertions. Not long ago, easily within the memory of men now living in Detroit, the well-to-do French peasant held his acres and refused twice their value, or demanded perhaps that the city put a rail-fence on each side of the street which eminent domain had forced through his land. In 1818 the people of Michigan refused to take upon themselves the popular privileges offered by the charter of 1787. A number of other examples might be given of how conservatism has influenced Michigan and its chief city in their development into modern American life.

For a long time Detroit was practically Michigan. For French and American tendencies are different. If the Americans had first settled Michigan, the farmer would have pressed into the country in the footsteps of the fur trader, farms would have appeared in secluded places in the forests, and a town would have grown up from natural causes and developed as the needs of the farming community of the back-country dictated. But as the gTCgarious and social tendencies of the French have made Paris the centre of their life, so in the western woods aU roads led to the rude metropolis, and it had an unusual dignity and importance. We are enabled, therefore, to concentrate our attention; and in examining with some care the life of Detroit and its vicinity we shall see the lives of the better element of the French settlers in the northwest. Their habits are the best guide-posts to their characters, and best indicate the peculiar position of these people in northwestern history.