General Cass was a courtly gentleman, dignified in manners, who, with a natural boldness of character which never lost wholly its power of self-assertion, gradually became ultra-conservative in his Democracy. Originally he had anti-slavery tendencies, but the Southern drift of his party, which became apparent about the time of his return from France, carried him with it, and he grew to be one of the most assiduous originators and supporters of the series of compromises which so long defeated justice and encouraged the aggressions of the slave power. The result was that in time the hammer of his personal influence in Michigan was broken on the anvil of New England ideas, while his name became the symbol of "hunkerism" in the Northwest; but in December, 1860, his octogenarian patriotism flamed up in the presence of armed treason and executive imbecility, and he branded the administration of James Buchanan as it deserved by indignantly resigning the portfolio of the department of state. No political contrast could well be more vivid than that between Lewis Cass and the man who succeeded him in the Senate, and replaced him in the political leadership of Michigan, representing a greater State, a nobler political cause, and instead of the make-shifts of compromise ideas which are to-day embodied in the fabric of American civilization. Zachariah Chandler's father was originally a Federalist, and then a Whig. The son brought with him to Detroit Whig sympathies and anti-slavery convictions, but no predisposition to political activity. For many years he refused to divert his energies from his mercantile pursuits, and took no share in party contests, except such as would be natural in the case of any enterprising citizen with a lively interest in public questions. He was known as a staunch Whig, and he thoroughly identified himself with that party when in both Michigan and the Union its victories seemed accidental, and its defeats certain. Between 1837 and 1848 his name frequently appears among the officers of Whig meetings, or as a member of the election day vigilance committees of his party, and (very rarely) as a ward delegate to Whig conventions. He was a regular contributor to the campaign fund, and he did his share of work at the polls. At that time the labors of election day were not those of persuasion merely. Partisan feeling was bitter, and in the population of the growing frontier city, there was a strong ruffianly element, which was as a rule Democratic in its sympathies. In close contests mobs sometimes gathered about the voting places, and sought by jostling and occasional assaults to keep away from the ballot-boxes the more timid or fastidious of the Whigs. On these occasions Mr. Chandler was among the men of strong frames, sinewy arms, and pugnacity of spirit, who furnished the Whig muscle to defeat this variety of "Loco-foco trick." He and Alanson Sheley (now a well-known Detroit