FIFTY YEARS OF PUBLIC LIFE.

THE

LIFE AND TIMES

OF

LEWIS CASS.

BY W. L. G. SMITH.

With a Portralt on Steel.

NEW YORK:

DERBY & JACKSON, 119 NASSAU STREET.

1856.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855,

BY W. L. G. SMITH,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York.

PREFACE.

THE following pages contain the life of an eminent citizen of the Republic. The compiler's object has been to present him, as he moved along, from point to point, in his own thoughts and actions.

Most of General CASS's time has been passed in public occupation; and, hence, the propriety of bringing out this work during his life-time.

It is believed that no topic of public concernment, for fifty years past, has been introduced, upon which General Cass has not expressed his views. In most instances, official position required him to do so. Readers may differ as to the value of these views; but all will concede that his history would be imperfect without them. To do justice to him, the compiler, in some instances, has presented his entire argument—especially upon the British claim to the right of visitation and search.

Questions of the most exciting character have arisen, to which General Cass was necessarily a party. He never shrinked from his just responsibility: but, in so doing, he has often been criticised, and his opinions and actions, sometimes, roughly assailed. In this compilation, the writer has not avoided these points.

Without intention to open afresh any wound that time may have healed, events, as they occurred, have been impartially given.

In short, the intention has been, to give a true and unreserved record of the life and times of a man, who has made his way through the world and attained a lofty position in its annals, unaided by the influence of family or wealth, indebted solely to his own judicious efforts and native abilities: thus furnishing another example in proof of the priceless goodness of a government that diffuses its blessings upon all alike, the low as well as the high-the poor as well as the rich.