History of Saginaw county, Michigan; together with ... portraits ... and biographies ... History of Michigan ...

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HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

est number of votes. John S. Horner, the -Territorial Governor,
was still in office here, and this singular mixture of Territorial and
State government continued until the following June, when Congress formally admitted Michigan into the Union as a State and
Horner was sent to Wisconsin, as before noted. This act of
Congress conditioned that the celebrated strip of territory over
which the quarrel had been so violent and protracted, should be given
to Ohio, and that Michigan might have as a compensation the
upper peninsula. That section of country was then known only as
a barren waste, containing some copper, no one knew how much.
Of course this decision by Congress was unsatisfactory to the people of this State. This was the third excision of territory from
Michigan, other clippings having been made in 1802 and 1816.
In the former year more than a thousand square miles was given to
Ohio, and in the latter year nearly 1,200 square miles was given to
Indiana. Accordingly, Gov. Mason convened the Legislature July
11, 1836, to act on the proposition of Congress. The vote stood 21
for acceptance and 28 for rejection. Three delegates were appointed
to repair to Washington, to co-operate with the representatives
there for the general interest of the State: but before Congress was
brought to final action on the matter, other conventions were held
in the State to hasten a decision. An informal one held at Ann
Arbor Dec. 14 unanimously decided to accept the proposition of
Congress and let the disputed strip of territory go to Ohio, and
thereupon Jan. 26, 1837, Michigan was admitted into the Union
on an equal footing with the original States.
MICHIGAN AS A STATE.
A State! This word contains avast amount of meaning. Before a
community becomes a State, there is comparatively a dead level of
homogeneity, the history of which consists simply of a record of
independent or disconnected events, as Indian wars, migration, etc.;
but when a people so far advance in civilization that they must
organize, like the plant and animal kingdoms, they must assume
"organs," having functions; and the more civilized and dense the
population, the more numerous and complicated these organs must
become,-to use the language of modern biology, the more the
organism must "differentiate."
Correspondingly, the history of Michigan, up to its organization
as a State, like that of all our Territories, is almost a disconnected
series of events; but on assuming the character ofa State, its organs
and functions multiply, becoming all the while more and more
dependent upon one another. To follow up the history of the
State, thereftre, with the same proportional fullness as we do its
Territorial epoch, would swell the work to scores or hundreds of
volumes; for the compiler would be obliged to devote at first a
volume to one feature, say the educational, and then soon divide
his subject into the various departments of the educational work of