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short, in nearly everything which had for him and those associated with him—whether in kinship or socially or in business-an every-day interest; it was only in respect to his mail that the state did not chiefly concern him. The federal government seemed a distant power, indispensable as a shield against foreign animosities or encroachments; and once in four years the citizen was likely to get warmed up in the course of the presidential campaign so as to feel a deep interest in the result, but this would be as often because he had inherited a place in one of the parties of the day as from any deep conviction that he had a personal concern in the choice the people would make. It was the state that was an ever-present beneficence, in whose doings he had a constant and immediate interest, and to whose provident arrangements he owed daily and hourly obligations. But he felt the state in its burdens also: the taxes imposed were considerable, and they were also direct; the citizen never paid them without knowing it, as he might pay customs duties, or other indirect taxes; and he had therefore an immediate interest in seeing that they were not levied for any but proper public purposes, and not expended dishonestly or wastefully. Almost all the local officers, except the postmaster, were also provided for and chosen, under state laws; so that in every way the state seemed vastly more important to the citizen than the nation; and the range of

subjects over which it had supreme control was so vast, and the subjects themselves so important, that state sovereignty seemed to the fireside philosophers, as they discussed politics with each other, a more palpable and conspicuous constitutional reality than the sovereignty of the Union. It was somewhat different in the large commercial towns, where foreign trade was considerable, and also in towns where large expenditures were made for military and naval purposes, or land offices located; but the agricultural and laboring classes of the country naturally attached themselves to state interests; and as parties divided on the construction of federal powers, the majority tended to the party that proposed to maintain in all their integrity the rights of the states.

Then the courts for the administration of justice were, for the most part, state courts, and the state regulated civil rights and prescribed and punished crimes. The federal judiciary had under its control the subjects of bankruptcy and admiralty, of controversies between states, and controversies in which foreign countries or their people might be concerned; and citizens of different states might implead each other in federal courts; and there were a few other cases which might be there brought. But nearly all the litigation of the country was in the state courts: they were the courts in which neighborhood controversies were determined; they sat with a neighborhood

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jury and they were the courts whose doings were immediately before the people and enlisted their interest and attention.

The time had not yet come for great expenditures of money by the general government upon works of internal improvement, or for great gifts of land to aid in the construction of such works. The party of strict construction of federal powers was in the ascendency, and disputed the power of the nation to make highways in the states, except as for strictly national purposes it might become important. Neither had the time for high protective duties yet come to interest great numbers of people in the customs taxes, and bring great lobbies to Washington.

It may well be said, therefore, that it was something to be proud of, to be a member of a commonwealth possessing the sovereign powers which were possessed by the states of the American Union; and the people of Michigan accepted their place as citizens of the twenty-sixth state, not with pride merely, but with unbounded confidence in its future.

CHAPTER XII.

THE STATE AND ITS ELEMENTS.

THE period of immaturity and tutelage was at last over, and the people who constituted the political society had become a state in the American Union with sovereign powers. They were well entitled to a recognition of this privilege of independent action, for their numbers were ample, the average of intelligence was high, and the elements of a vigorous and self-respecting state were to be seen on all sides in abundance.

The French-Canadian element was still conspicuous along all the eastern border of the state, and the increase was large and continuous, though the proportion relatively to the whole population was all the while diminishing. The grades of society among this people ran from highest to lowest: many of them boasted, with much pride, of aristocratic descent, and had inherited large wealth; and these constituted an intelligent and refined society into which the better classes of other nationalities were glad to be admitted. At the other extreme in the social scale were the coureurs de bois and voyageurs, who still were to

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be found in considerable numbers, though their occupations, except upon the upper waters, were for the most part gone; the fur trade in Michigan being no longer the large and profitable commerce it once was, and no considerable parties being now organized to conduct it. But these roving characters still gathered about the old French settlements, and took up, when they labored at all, such occupations as made their lives most nearly correspond to those they had been accustomed to lead. Many became professional fishermen; others got to be draymen and petty expressmen with little carts and ponies. And then above these lowest classes, the French in and about the towns were found in numerous employments; many being market-gardeners and hucksters, many others merchants in a small way; and whatever the business, women were not unfrequently the principals in carrying it on. But this people had their part in more extensive operations also; and some of the leading and most prosperous business men were of this nationality.

French farms may almost be said to have lined the river from the mouth of the Detroit to Lake St. Clair; their houses fronted upon the road which ran along the river bank, and there was only a narrow belt of cultivation behind them, bordered by dense forest, in which wolves, bears, and other wild animals still offered pastime to the sportsmen. The agriculture of the farmers was