A half-century ago, Civil War author and native Michigander Bruce Catton delivered the eleventh annual Lewis Cass lecture, when he received an honorary doctorate of humanities from Wayne State University in Detroit. His remarks were entitled Michigan’s Past and the Nation’s Future. As was typical with Catton, the speech was thoughtful and poetic. It concluded with this glimpse of the road ahead:
It is here we need the kind of courage which a study of our own past can give us. We need boldness and we need imagination—the boldness that finds materials for victory in the moment when the battle seems lost; the imagination that can look beyond the present crisis to the world that is waiting for us to enter it. We are not fighting a rear-guard action, after all. Our heritage contains the vision, the faith and the courage by which this dangerous path can be turned into an avenue toward the future. Man is still God’s instrument on earth; his dreams are still things that can survive him and become real.
Michigan continues its wandering journey on that path. Its past—including the last dispiriting decade—is prelude to a future that still depends for success, as it did in 1959, on imagination, boldness, faith and courage.
The Civil War generation of Michiganders—black, white and red, men, women and children—helped save the nation during its greatest crisis. Providing stalwart leadership, critical manpower, abundant materiel and political support for the Union cause, Michigan was a true blue state. Its people became extraordinary instruments of ultimate victory, yielding the promise of a new birth of freedom that today continues to be fulfilled. Even its own citizens have too often overlooked Michigan’s inestimable contributions during the War era. Current and future generations can take confidence and inspiration from the role Michigan played during the ordeal; beyond its lakes and borders, others may find lessons from the Great Lake State helpful in their own crisis.
We can still be extraordinary instruments.