page_title: Toledo War
section_title: Presidential intervention
hierarchical_section_title: Toledo War / War / Presidential intervention
caption_attribution_description: English: portrait of Richard Rush
context_page_description: The Toledo War, also known as the Great Toledo War, the Michigan-Ohio War or the Ohio-Michigan War, was an almost bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan.
  Poor geographical understanding of the Great Lakes helped produce conflicting state and federal legislation between 1787 and 1805, and varying interpretations of the laws led the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim jurisdiction over a 468-square-mile region along the border, now known as the Toledo Strip. The situation came to a head when Michigan petitioned for statehood in 1835 and sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries. Both sides passed legislation attempting to force the other side's capitulation, while Ohio's Governor Robert Lucas and Michigan's 24-year-old "Boy Governor" Stevens T. Mason helped institute criminal penalties for citizens submitting to the other's authority. Both states deployed militias on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo, but besides mutual taunting, there was little interaction between the two forces.
context_section_description: In a desperate attempt to prevent armed battle and to avert the resulting political crisis, U.S. President Andrew Jackson consulted his Attorney General, Benjamin Butler, for his legal opinion on the border dispute. At the time, Ohio was a growing political power in the Union, with nineteen U.S. representatives and two senators. In contrast, Michigan, still being a territory, had only a single non-voting delegate. Ohio was a crucial swing state in presidential elections, and it would have been devastating to the fledgling Democratic Party to lose Ohio's electoral votes. Therefore, Jackson calculated that his party's best interest would be served by keeping the Toledo Strip a part of Ohio.
  The response that Jackson received from Butler was unexpected: the Attorney General held that until Congress dictated otherwise, the land rightfully belonged to Michigan. This presented a political dilemma for Jackson that spurred him to take action that would greatly influence the outcome of the "war".
  On April 3, 1835, Jackson sent two representatives from Washington, D.C., Richard Rush of Pennsylvania and Benjamin Chew Howard of Maryland, to Toledo to arbitrate the conflict and present a compromise to both governments. The proposal, presented on April 7, recommended that the re-survey to mark the Harris Line commence without further interruption by Michigan, and that the residents of the affected region be allowed to choose their own state or territorial governments until the Congress could definitively settle the matter.
  Lucas reluctantly agreed to the proposal and began to disband his militia, believing the debate to be settled. Three days later, elections in the region were held under Ohio law. Mason refused the deal and he continued to prepare for possible armed conflict.
  During the elections, Ohio officials were harassed by Michigan authorities and the area residents were threatened with arrest if they submitted to Ohio's authority. On April 8, 1835, the Monroe County, Michigan sheriff arrived at the home of Major Benjamin F. Stickney, an Ohio partisan. In the first contact between Michigan partisans and the Stickney family, the sheriff arrested two Ohioans under the Pains and Penalties Act on the basis that the men had voted in the Ohio elections.
caption: Richard Rush of Pennsylvania, a representative of President Jackson who helped to present a compromise to both governors
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