Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/334

CASS. 284 CASS. was bom at Dresden, Muskingum County, Ohio, graduated in 1832 at the United States Military Academy, and resigned from the army in 183ti with the rank of first lieutenant of infantry. Between 1840 and 18.54 he Avas active in extend- ing and perfecting the service of the Adams Express Company from Boston to the South and West, and in 1859-G2 was president of the company. He was president from 1862 to 1884 of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Rail- way, from 18G9 to 1874 of the (I rand Rapids and Indiana Railway, and from 1871 to 1873 of the Xorthern Pacific Railway. Shortly after his resignation from the army he was appointed to the engineer corps eni[iloyed in the construc- tion of the national road; and in connection witll that work he erected over Dunlap's Creek, Pa., what is said to have been the first cast-iron bridge built in the United States. CASS, Lewis (17S2-186G). An American state-sman. He was born on October 9, 1782, at Exeter, N. H., and was the son of Jonathan Cass, a blacksmitli by trade, who joined the Revolutionary Army, rose to the rank of cap- tain before the close of the war, reentered the military service, removed to Oliio, and attained the rank of major. The son attended Phillips Exeter .cademy. taught school for several months at Wilmington, Del., and followed his father to Marietta, Ohio, in 1799 or 1800. He studied law in the ollice of R. J. Meigs, later Governor of Ohio, was admitted to the bar in 1802, and in 1804 was elected prosecuting at- torney of ^luskingum County. Two years later he was elected a memt>er of the Ohio Legislature, and in the same year married a daughter of llie Revolutionary leader General Spencer. As a member of the Legislature, Cass was active in the advocacy of measures to thwart the intrigues of Aaron Burr (q.v.), and, in recognition of his services. President Jefferson appointed him in 1807 to a Federal marshalship, which he held for six years. In the War of 1812 Cass entered the service as colonel of Ohio volunteers, took part in Hull's disastrous attempt to invade Canad.a, strongly condemned that officer's surrender of Detroit, and was the chief witness against the defendant in the Hull court-martial at Albany, I. Y. (See Hull, Wili,i.m.) He was ap- pointed major-general of Ohio militia in Decem- ber, 1812, a colonel in the regular army in February, 1813, and a brigadier-general in the regular army in JIarch, 1813; took an active part in the campaign of 1813 under General Harrison (q.v.), and on October 29 of that year was appointed Governor of the Territory of Jlichigan. Relations with the Englisli and the Indians, as well as the internal conditions of a frontier territory, made the office particularly burdensome and enhanced the value of his ser- vices therein. During his long term of office he administered the aff'airs of the territory under his jurisdiction (wlii<h even after the organiza- tion of Indiana in 1818 included all the land as far west as the ^lississippi and north of the northern line of Illinois) with the greatest abil- ity and good judgment, making as many as twenty-two important treaties with the Indians, establishing an orderly and efficient civil govern- ment, and steadily ujiholding the dignity of the national Government against the frequent and un- warranted encroachments of the British author- ities in Canada. In 1831, upon the reorganiza- tion of .Jackson's Cabinet, he was appointed Sec- retary of War, which office he held during the Black Hawk and first Semhude wars and the nullification movement in South Carcdina. In 1830 lie was sent by Jackson as Minister to France, and during his residence in Paris at- tracted attention abroad, besides winning great popularity at home, by protesting vigorously against the quintuple treaty for the sujipression of the slave trade, which involved the right of search, and which, owing largely to the inliuence of Cass, the French Goveinment refused to rati- fy. He resigned in 1S42. owing to his emphatic disajiproval of the Ashhurton Treaty just nego- tiated by the Secretary of State, Mr. Webster. He was infornially proposed for the Presidency as early as 1842, but although, by favoring the annexation of Texas, he placed himself in har- mony with the controlling element of his party, he failed to secure the Democratic nomination in 1844. Jlicliigan, in the following February, elected him to the United States Senate, where he upheld the extreme -American claims to the territory of the far Northwest. He opposed the Wilmot Proviso (q.v.) as untimelv, and in a letter of December 24, 1847, to Mr. A. O. P. Nicholson, of Nashville, Tenn., first definitely formulated the doctrine which later became known as that of 'squatter sovereignty.' The Democratic Convention of 1848 nominated him for the Presidency, but the Van Burcnites, or 'Barnburners' (q.v.). of New York, bolted the Democratic ticket, and the Whig candidate. Gen- eral Taylor, was elected. In January, 1849, Cass was elected to the Senate, to fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation upon entering the Presidential cam- paign, and two years later he was again elected for the full term. He favored Clay's compro- mise measures of 1850 (q.v.) upheld the Fugitive Slave Law (q.v.), and went with those of his party who voted for the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. He was a candidate for the Presidential nomination in the Democratic Convention of ISoti, and his defeat was intensified by the election in Michi- gan of a Legislature strongly Republican, which resulted in his retirement from the Senate. Pres- ident Buchanan called him to the Cabinet as Secretary of State, an ofTice which be resigned in December, 1800, upon the President's refusal to reinforce the forts at Charleston. S. C. His closing years were spent in Detroit, where he was a pronounced supporter of the I'nion in the face of those who were at war against it. He died in Detroit, June 17, 18G6, in his eighty- fourth year. His latest biographer, McLaughlin, estimates his character in the following words; "He was a great American statesman, building up and Americanizing an important section of his conn- ^ try, struggling in places of trust for the recog- nition of American dignity and for the develop- ment of generous nationalism. With the great slavery contest his name is inseparably con- nected; he stood with Webster and Clay for Union, for conciliation, for the Constitution as it .seemed to be established. He was one of those men whose broad lave of country and pride in her greatness, however exaggerated, however absurd it may seem in these days of cynical self- restraint, lifted her from colonialism to nation- al dignity, and imbued the pcojilc with a sense of their power." He lias frequently been called