The conspicuous figure in Michigan politics, when Zachariah Chandler landed at Detroit and for twenty-five years afterward, was Lewis Cass. He was a man of ability and many accomplishments, irreproachable in private life, and with a claim upon the enduring gratitude of the people of the Northwest for his large share in the founding of mighty States about the shores of the great lakes. He came to Michigan with military distinction, and had added to his laurels civic honors as a territorial ruler, as a skilful negotiator with the Indians, and as an intrepid explorer. General Cass was a warm political and personal friend of Andrew Jackson, and his influence made Michigan a strongly Democratic territory and State. In 1831 he had been appointed Secretary of War in President Jackson's cabinet, and in 1836 he was sent to Paris as the United States Minister at the court of Louis Phillippe. The courage, vigor and skill of his attack upon the "Quintuple Treaty," which embodied Great Britain's theories on the then delicate topic of the right of search on the high seas, and which was defeated by the refusal of France to ratify the preliminary negotiations, made his ambassadorship an event in European diplomacy, and gave him a national reputation on this continent. His return to Detroit in 1843 was attended by unusual popular demonstrations at every important point in his Westward journey. In 1845 Michigan sent him to the Senate, and in 1848 the Democracy nominated him as its candidate for the presidency. That a man who thus made a new commonwealth influential in national politics should call about him a strong following and mould public sentiment at his own home was natural, and the State of Lewis Cass was long regarded as staunchly Democratic. His party held control for years of the main avenues of political preferment, and not a few young men of parts and ambition who came to Michigan as Whigs were led into the ranks of the Democracy by the fact that it was the only organization which had honors and offices to bestow.