Lewis Cass (1782-1866) was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, and died in Detroit, Michigan. He was an American military officer, politician, and statesman. He represented Michigan in the United States Senate and served in the Cabinets of two U.S. Presidents, Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan. Cass attended Phillips Exeter Academy before establishing a legal practice in Zanesville, Ohio. After serving in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1807, he was appointed as a U.S. Marshal by President Thomas Jefferson. Cass also joined the Freemasons and would eventually co-found the Grand Lodge of Michigan. He fought at the Battle of the Thames in the War of 1812 and was appointed to govern Michigan Territory in 1813. He remained governor there until 1831, when he was appointed as Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson and helped implement Jackson's genocidal policy known as The Indian Removal Act. He was the 1848 Democratic presidential nominee and a leading spokesman for the Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty, which held that the people in each territory should decide whether to permit slavery. Cass returned to the Senate in 1849 and continued to serve until 1857 when he accepted appointment as the Secretary of State under President James Buchanan. He resigned from the Cabinet in 1860 in protest of Buchanan's handling of the threatened secession of several Southern states.

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