Lewis Cass

Lewis Cass (1782-1866), American statesman, born in Exeter, New Hampshire, and educated at Phillips Exeter Academy. Cass studied law privately in Ohio and was admitted to the bar in 1802. He was elected to the Ohio legislature in 1806. When the War of 1812 with Britain broke out, he entered the U.S. Army and rose rapidly to the rank of brigadier general. From 1813 to 1831, he was governor of the Michigan Territory, and in 1831 he became secretary of war in the cabinet of President Andrew Jackson. He resigned the post in 1836 to serve as the U.S. minister to France. Cass was elected to the U.S. Senate, serving from 1845 to 1848, when he was the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate; he was defeated by the Whig candidate, General Zachary Taylor. He again served in the Senate from 1849 to 1857, when he was appointed secretary of state under President James Buchanan. Cass resigned from the cabinet in 1860, when the president refused to reinforce Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina.