There were not wanting those who were ready to attribute their misfortunes to unwise advice of the young governor. But the revolution was undoubtedly the result of general causes operating throughout the country. The democratic party had been long in power, and throughout the Jacksonian era they had carried things with a strong hand. The dismemberment of Michigan on her southern border had been approved, if not brought about by the administration; and this had tended to alienate the loyalty of many. All these causes combined to produce the result.

Not only was a whig governor and lieutenant governor elected by the people, but a legislature was returned in sympathy with the governor, and the reaction did not entirely spend its force until Jacob M. Howard had taken the place of Isaac E. Crary in the House of Representatives, and Augustus S. Porter and William Woodbridge had taken the seats of Lucius Lyon and John Norvell in the Senate of the United States.

Judge Cooley in his "Michigan" truly says: "But no political changes could stop the vicious consequences of the wild cat banking, which were attributable to no one party, and which were continued by suspension laws through several years. All the important legislation of the state for some time, and especially all that concerned public improvements and the collection of debts was shaped in view of the depression which followed the financial dissipation.

But measures of relief only aggravated and prolonged the evils of a worthless currency; "a compound" as a writer of the day justly said, "of folly and wickedness." "Then came stay laws and laws to compel creditors to take lands at a valuation. They were doubtful in point of utility and more than doubtful in point of morality and constitutionality."

Michigan was guilty of many youthful sins. She had sown her "wild oats" with a liberal hand, and she had reaped a corresponding crop of disaster and ruin. The lesson was not forgotten. When the constitution of 1850 was framed we find this clause added to Section 2, Article V, on the Executive Department: "Nor shall any person be eligible to either office (Governor or Lieutenant Governor) who has not attained the age of thirty years;" and this as Section 45, Article IV, "The assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the Legislature shall be requisite to every bill appropriating money or property for local or private purposes." Section 3, Article XIV, "The state may contract debts to meet deficits in revenue, such debts shall not in the aggregate at any one time exceed fifty thousand dollars." Section 6, same article, "No scrip, certificate or other evidence of state indebtedness shall be issued except for the redemption of stock previously issued."

Section 8, "The state shall not subscribe to or be interested in the stock of any company, association or corporation."

Section 9, "The state shall not be a party to or interested in any work of internal improvement."

Article XV, Section 2, "No general banking law shall have effect until the same shall, after its passage, be submitted to a vote of the electors of the state at a general election and be approved by a majority of the votes cast thereon at such election."

It may be that in the long years since elapsed, and in the longer stretch of the years that are yet to come in the history of the state, the lesson will be found worth all it cost. If it must come, it were better that it come then than later.

But it is fully time to leave this tale of woe and turn

to an affair which transpired during Governor Mason's administration, which, at the time, involved Michigan, and at one time threatened to disturb the friendly relations between the United States and England and her provinces the "Patriot War" or attempted insurrection in Upper Canada, in 1837 and 1838. So far as this history is concerned, we have nothing to do with the causes which led to this ill-starred attempt. As near as can be judged from this distance of time, the movement originated with residents of both Upper Canada and the United States, of Irish birth or descent, and some restless spirits, natives of the United States, but who had removed to Canada, who entertained the hope of detaching the peninsula lying between the Michigan frontier and the Niagara frontier from Canada, and attaching it to the United States. In short, they aspired to do what Generals Hull and Harrison had failed to do. The movement culminated in the winter of 18371838, and the Michigan frontier was made the base of operations. The points of assembling were Fort Gratiot (or Port Huron), Mount Clemens, Detroit, and Gibraltar, nearly opposite Amhertsburg.*

In an article by George C. Bates, the well-known lawyer and United States District Attorney for Michigan, published in thirteenth Michigan Historical Collections, 532, he gives some account of an attempt of the "Patriots" to sieze the arms, ammunition, and artillery of the United States at Fort Gratiot, and the manner in which it was forestalled and prevented.

Of the promoters of the movement he says: "Meet

*For more detailed accounts of the operations on the Michigan frontier in the "Patriot War" see

2 Mich. Hist. Coll. 576.

12 Mich. Hist. Coll. 414 and 619. 13 Mich. Hist. Coll. 532 and 598.

ings had been called, secret military organizations created, and Dr. E. A. Theller, an Irish enthusiast for anything opposed to Great Britain, a native born Fenian, had committed some overt acts for which he had been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced to the citadel of Quebec, from which he had escaped and fled to Detroit, where he was surrounded by such aids as General E. J. Roberts, General Peter J. Handy" and others. "Straggling parties of armed military men were waiting along the border for the ice to form, over which they could enter Canada, unfurl their flag, and establish there a temporary government in rebellion against the British crown."

He then proceeds to give a graphic account of the attempt by the "Patriots" to seize Fort Gratiot which was frustrated by a detachment of the "Brady Guards" of which detachment he was a member. Lieutenant (afterward Major-General), A. S. Williams was in command of the detachment, and with him was Sergeant A. T. McReynolds, (afterward Colonel of the "Harris Cavalry," and Brigadier General).

The arms, ammunition, and guns were safely brought to Detroit, although Mr. Bates claims that they were opposed "by some six hundred to eight hundred desperate men."

In the same paper by Mr. Bates will be found an account of the "Battle of Fighting Island" a small island in Detroit river below Ecorce, the "Partiots" holding possession of the island until driven off by the British troops under Colonel Basden. General Hugh Brady, with American troops occupied the Michigan shore and arrested many of the fleeing fugitives. This skirmish took place February 1, 1838. No report is given of the casualties if there were any. In both cases Mr. Bates was an eye witness and participant, and

while doubtless the main facts may be relied upon, his style of narrative leads one to suspect that he courted oratorical picturesqueness rather more than intimate historical accuracy and reserve.

The "Patriots" who made their base of operations in Michigan were organized into secret lodges known as "Hunters lodges." One of these was located at Mount Clemens, and of the gathering there the Rev. Supply Chase, a Baptist missionary then located at Mount Clemens, in an address before the Detroit Historical Society says: "In the winter of 1837-8 occurred the Patriot war in Canada, and one company of the Patriots was quartered at Mount Clemens; a motley crew of loafers, renegades and deadbeats, apparently gathered from the outscourings of the country, whose chief exploits were to see how much whiskey they could put themselves outside of, and how much dirt and profanity they could indulge in. During the winter they had a few dress parades, when they would have compared favorably with Falstaffs warriors of an earlier day."*

Perhaps the most reliable history of this peculiar attempt is to be found in a paper published without name of the author, but prepared by some one connected with the Detroit Historical Society before which it was read March 28, 1861,† and among whose papers it was found. He says: "It sprung from a wide-spread disaffection among the people of Upper and Lower Canada with reference to their domestic affairs and their relations to the mother country." He stated that many United States officials "were members of the Hunters Lodges, and that some of them, not excepting judges, were eloquent and vehement orators in the

*5 Mich. Hist. Coll. 58.

t12 Mich. Hist. Coll. 414.