Summed up briefly, the failure of the negotiation was due.

1. to the defective law, which did not provide for payment in Europe of the principal, and fixed an arbitrary rate of exchange, and forbade the sale at less than par, thus making such sale practically impossible.

2. The great glut of American securities in the European market, and the low ruling of sterling bonds in New York, as well as the return of large amounts of American securities from Europe.

3. The financial embarrassment and demoralization in all parts of the country, and especially in Michigan, on account of our peculiar banking system.

Concluding this explanation and defence the Governor adds: "The negotiation of this loan was committed to the Executive contrary to his sense and opinion of what was due to the public interests. At the last session of the legislature he earnestly recommended by a special message, the appointment of loan commissioners; he stated his inability to devote the proper time to the duty imposed upon him; and above all urged that it was wrong in principle to entrust such heavy interests to the uncontrolled discretion of one individual, when no corresponding securities to the state existed. Whilst the commissioners of other states devote their undivided exertions to the negotiations of their loans, and are present a greater part of the year at the theater of their operations, the time of the executive of this state has been too much divided between the ordinary duties of his office and his negotiations abroad to secure a proper attention to the important trusts committed to him.

With such views and sentiments I must again urge upon the legislature the absolute importance of transferring the management of this loan to other hands."

We have dwelt at so much length upon this feature of

the governor's last message, first, because the five million loan was in itself one of the most important events in the early history of the state; second, because it was undoubtedly the cause of the downfall of the first governor of the state, and, as many believe, was the cause of his finding an early grave among strangers, far from the land he had loved and labored for, and, more than all, because it is a phase of the case which is not presented, unless in the most casual manner, in most of the existing histories of Michigan.

Governor Mason has been freely criticised and condemned, but has not been heard at the bar of history in his own defense. But the unanimity with which Michigan, two-thirds of a century afterward, took action for the removal of the remains of her "Boy Governor" to her own soil, and the honor with which she lovingly received them to her embrace, suggests that judgment has been reversed, and a new trial granted.*

Concluding this portion of the message, he says: "But as there are many circumstances connected with this negotiation which admit of explanation, and which have, perhaps, in the excitement of a political contest, received an unjust application, I would recommend the appointment of a committee to investigate all such matters as present an unfavorable aspect to any portion of your body. For myself, I court the most rigid inquiry, nay, I demand it at the hands of this legislature."

We are far enough away in this new century from the party asperity of seventy years ago, and from the necessity of a scapegoat for the sins of improvident legislators to do justice to the memory of Stevens Thomson Mason.

There is something pathetic and at the same time *See appendix Vol. 2.

manly and convincing in the words in which he concludes this his farewell message, and they deserve in justice to be transcribed to the page of history.

"The present is in all probability the last occasion I shall have of communicating with the representatives of the people of Michigan, and I cannot refrain from an expression of gratitude to the great body of my fellow citizens for the repeated manifestations of favorable regard they have extended to me. Though sensible that my exertions have not met with the success I could have wished, yet I trust they will be considered as having been directed by an earnest desire for the public good. And if my official relations to the people of Michigan have been attended with any injurious consequences to their interests, I am consoled by the persuasion that those evils will find their correction in the patriotism of the legislative branch of the government, and in the wisdom of those who may succeed me."

In order to present this crucial and personal aspect of the message we have for the time passed over other important recommendations which may be summarized as follows: The banks should be regulated and controlled, not destroyed. "The banks have their rights and should be protected in them; but they are not above all law human and divine." "As has been justly declared, if all the pretensions of these corporations are acknowledged, it is elevating the money power above all others, above thrones and principalities, laws and constitutions." He renews his recommendations of a State Bank, before made to the previous legislature and urges his arguments by the lessons of experience; recommends that the duties of the superintendent of public instruction be divided, and the financial part entrusted to an assistant to be provided.

Of the University he says five branches have been

established, at which one hundred sixty-three "youths" are in attendance, and recommends that the seventy-two sections of land attached to the "salines" be set apart for the support of the branches; a loan of $100,000 has been effected for the purpose of constructing University buildings, and a plan for the building adopted; again he discusses the general subject of education, and commends the progress already made; refers to the geological survey, saying that from this source the anticipation of benefits to the state are about to be fully realized. Commends the agricultural interests to the care of the legislature; reports the progress of the state prison, and recommends that legislative authority be granted to transfer prisoners from county jails to the prison; urges the separation of the functions of the circuit and supreme courts, so that the judges of the latter will not be called on to review their own decisions when sitting on circuit; deplores the faulty execution of the criminal laws, and suggests district prosecuting attorneys with larger salaries, instead of the poorly paid county attorneys; again urgently recommends the abolition of imprisonment for debt, which Judge Fletcher had omitted from the revised code; again urges improvements in the militia; and the repeal of the usury laws, and auction licenses. In accordance with the joint resolution of April 6, 1838, the governor had procured the opinion of eminent counsel* in regard to the Ohio boundary question, and whether Michigan had any judicial remedy; but the opinion was to the effect "that Michigan had no remedy left her known to the constitution and the laws of the land, by which she can disturb the boundary line as now settled."*

With some remarks in regard to the slavery agitation, *Chancellor Kent and D. B. Ogden. (H. J. 1839, p. 677.)