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actually surveyed in 1817, and called the "Harris" line. The parallel was also run about the same time and called the "Fulton" line. The strip between the two, about eight miles wide at its eastern end and five at its western, soon became the subject of a lively controversy between the territory and the state. As the strip began to be settled, Michigan assumed jurisdiction over it and established local governments. In 1832 Toledo was founded, the people who settled there wished to belong to Ohio, and this brought on what is known as the Toledo War. In 1835 the Ohio legislature voted to extend its jurisdiction over the disputed tract, and Governor Lucas proceeded to Toledo with a force of 600 militia. Stevens T. Mason was then acting governor of Michigan and he at once occupied Toledo with 1,000 men. But the two forces never came to blows. President Jackson sent two commissioners to make peace and they succeeded in inducing the militia to disperse. Ohio afterwards attempted to resurvey the Harris line, but her surveyors were arrested by the watchful Michigan officials and Ohio officers who attempted to get possession were thrown into prison. Michigan thus maintained possession.

117. The dispute was destined to be settled in Congress, and here the advantages were all against our state. For it was the eve of a presidential election, and Ohio was a state with presidential votes and Michigan only a territory. Besides Indiana and Illinois had both been extended north of the Ordinance line, and their interests were thus with Ohio. Hence, when the Michigan constitution, with the Ordinance line for the southern boundary, was submitted to Congress, Congress passed an act providing that the state should be admitted when its constitution was so amended as to conform to

the Harris line. In compensation for this loss of territory, the possessions of the state north of the Straits of Mackinaw were extended westward from the territorial line to the Montreal and Menominee Rivers.

In exchange for the little strip of agricultural land on the south and what afterwards proved to be the thriving city of Toledo, Michigan gained a great tract of wilderness and mountains on the north, humorously referred to at the time as fit only to furnish the state with bears and Indians, but which has since made her one of the richest states of the Union in mineral products.

118. Before Michigan could be admitted as a state she must accept the conditions imposed by Congress. This necessitated a new convention. This convention met at Ann Arbor, September 4, 1836, and rejected the new boundaries by an emphatic vote. But now national politics were for the first time beginning to invade the state. People were dividing into Whigs and Jacksonian Democrats. The Jackson party now called a convention of its own members. They met at Ann Arbor, December 6, 1836, and although a mere party convention, known as the "frost bitten convention," with no authority whatever to speak for the state, they assumed to accept the boundary prescribed by Congress. The dominant party in Congress chose to accept this action as legal, and Michigan was recognized a state of the Union January 26, 1837.

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Green, Making of England.-Macy, Constitutional History of England, chapter XII.—Medley, Manual of English Constitutional History, Introduction.—Montague, Elements of Constitutional History of England, chapters I. and II.—Stubbs, Constitutional History of England, Vol. I., chapter V.-Gardiner, Students' History of England, chapters I., II., III., V., pp. 69-73.-Hinsdale, American Government, chapter XII.— Cooley, Constitutional Limitations, chapter II.-Von Holst, Constitutional History of United States, Vol. I., chapter I.— Curtis, Constitutional History of the United States, Vol. I.— Willoughby, The American Constitutional System (New York, The Century Co.), especially chapters I., II., III., V., VI., VII., VIII, IX., XIII., XIV., and XIX.-Schouler, Constitutional Studies, Part II., chapters III. and IV.; Part III., chapter I.— Merriam, History of Political Theories, chapter VII.

I20. We have thus traced the outward History of Michigan from the first advent of white men to the time of its admission as a state of the Union. When Michigan became a territory, it became for the first time. a distinct political unit, but it was nevertheless a dependency and its government for most of the territorial period, was in principle, whatever may have been its administration, purely despotic. During all this and preceding periods, there had been something distinct and unique in the character and spirit of Michigan life. When in 1835 Michigan became a state, it passed to a degree of political independence it had never before enjoyed, and it would seem as if our history had really just begun. But the reality was just the opposite.

With the assumption of statehood, our separate life was merged into the life of the country at large. Our aloofness came to an end. Our characteristics became less and less distinctive, and more and more the national characteristics; our history is no longer a separate one, but is simply a not very considerable part of the larger history of the nation. The only exception to this is in the development of our domestic and local institutions, and such peculiar history as they have we can best trace when we deal with them separately. Hence we may now drop the subject of history as such, and come to what is really the main purpose of this work, viz. to deal with our political institutions.

I2I. And first we have seen that Michigan has passed from a territory to a state. What is the meaning of statehood? One of the essential processes in becoming a state was to be admitted as one of the United States. What is our relation to the United States?

122. As to the territorial stage a few brief words in the constitution show fully the condition of a region during that period. "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory" of the United States. The power of the central government over a territory is thus complete. How Congress saw fit to exercise this power we have already seen in the Ordinance of 1787, and in the government provided for Michigan. Towards the close of our territorial period some voice in the management of their affairs was given to the people of the territory. But this was a privilege extended by Congress and could at any time be withdrawn. A state evidently has larger powers. Are they also granted by Congress, and can they be modified or withdrawn at the will of

that body? We saw also from the Ordinance that the president of the United States appointed the Governor and other officials of the territory. These officials would therefore be more or less bound to carry out the wishes of the president, and they were in reality given whatever authority they had by the central government. Are state officials thus derived? are they thus bound? and is the source of their authority the same? These are fundamental questions as regards our state, and the answer to them cannot be given in a word, and is not wholly easy to understand. But they are really historical questions, and we must approach them through history to see their full meaning.

123. As we have seen Michigan was originally French, and French customs and institutions were the first to be established here. But the English conquered the continent, and English institutions were the ones that have everywhere prevailed. So completely is this true in Michigan that there is not to-day a trace of French influence in any detail of our government. These English institutions were not created by the Englishmen who came to America after reaching our shores, but were simply transplanted here from across the seas. Their origin reaches back into the remotest part of English history, which is thus our history, and while we cannot here trace their genesis in detail, we can at least see the great principles in accordance with which they have been developed.

124. When the Germanic tribes conquered England they formed many little independent states or kingdoms, the size of which is still indicated by such English shires as Norfolk, Kent, or Sussex. Within these little states the people settled in hamlets, each with its own tract of surrounding land, each regulating its

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