had greatly depreciated, being practically irredeemable except by the payment of taxes and other dues to the state, the legislature authorized the issue of "land scrip," representing these internal improvement lands, in payment of claims arising out of the works in internal improvement. But the people were just beginning to realize that putting a fanciful price upon unimproved land did not change or increase its real value. great many people were endeavoring to realize on land, all at the same time, and the land scrip followed the example of the state scrip, or treasury notes, and became "a drug on the market."

A

In accordance with the recommendations of Governor Woodbridge, the legislature threw overboard all the great works of improvement except the Central and Southern railroads, which the state clung to until 1846, when the Central was opened to Marshall and the Southern to Hillsdale, both using the old fashioned wooden with iron strap rail.

In January, 1846, a committee of the senate reported the total expenditures of the state on different works of internal improvement at about $4,500,000, besides 305,000 of the 500,000 acres of the internal improvement lands granted by Congress in 1841.*

Pursuant to the provisions of Act No. 42 of the session of 1846, the state sold the Central railroad to the Michigan Central Railroad Company for $2,000,000, and the same year closed out the Southern railroad to the Michigan Southern Railroad Company for $500,ooo, receiving in payment the part paid bonds of the "Five Million Loan." So ended the great internal improvement system.

In November, 1837, the second state election took

*1. Mich. Hist. Col. 147.

place, and Stevens T. Mason was re-elected governor over C. C. Trowbridge, the whig candidate, by a majority of 237. This slender majority shows that the unsettled conditions of the times, and, perhaps, distrust of the magnificent scheme in which the state had embarked at the governor's suggestion, were already producing a political reaction which resulted in a political revolution in 1839.

Edward Mundy was re-elected lieutenant governor, and John D. Pierce was continued superintendent of public instruction. Randolph Manning was appointed secretary of state, Henry Howard was reappointed state treasurer, Peter Morey became attorney general and Robert Abbott remained auditor general. Thomas Fitzgerald, Alpheus Felch, and K. Pritchett were reappointed bank commissioners. This continued to be the organization of the state government from January, 1838, to January, 1840.

By the constitution of 1835, the governor and lieutenant governor, were to be elected in October, 1835, and their successors elected every two years thereafter, while the representatives and one-half of the senate were to be elected annually. All other officers, (except treasurer, who was to be chosen by the two houses of the legislature), were to be nominated by the governor, and confirmed by the senate, except the superintendent of public instruction, who was to be confirmed by the two houses in joint assembly, and were to hold office for two years.

It therefore happened that the state officers were chosen under the constitution of 1835 in the odd numbered years, and commenced their terms of office in the January following. Thus the general state elections were held in 1835, 1837, 1839, 1841, and so on, until the new constitution went into effect in 1851. By that

constitution it was provided that the biennial state election should take place on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November of each even-numbered year, and the officials chosen should enter upon their duties on the first of January of the succeeding year.

This arrangement brought the state election into harmony with the National presidential and congressional elections.

As has been before said, the election of 1839 registered a political revolution in the state. All its previous governors had been democrats of the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian school. For a long series of years its legislative, executive, and judicial officers had been appointed by the President and had been almost uniformly followers and political disciples of Governor Cass. Governor Mason was of the same school, as were normally the majority of the settlers. But there is no such political propagandist as hard times; and the results of legislation on banks, loans, and public works had brought the state to the brink of ruin. Not an honest working man or farmer in the state but had lost-some of them all they possessed by the dishonest wild cat banks.

The notes had become practically worthless in their hands, and the "flush times" when so-called money was plentiful as leaves on the trees, were succeeded by a period of great stringency, and an enormous contraction of circulating medium, resulting in a corresponding shrinkage of all values of lands and products. Thousands of men who on the strength of town-site speculations, plentiful bank notes, and imaginary cities to be built up by railroads and canals, had imagined themselves rich, now suddenly found all their imaginary wealth evaporated, and themselves poorer than when they entered the territory, with barely the means to make an opening in the wilderness.