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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;johnmilton, post: 24591228, member: 101855&quot;]The 1848 presidential election was one of two races the Whig Party won during their 20 years of existence. As had been the case for their first win, they ran Mexican War hero, Zachary Taylor. The first time in 1840, they won with William Henry Harrison who died after only a month in office. </p><p><br /></p><p>Taylor&#039;s opponent was Lewis Cass. If you are from Michigan, Cass is an important figure. He had much to do with the territory and then state&#039;s early history. Unfortunately, it is my impression that Cass was past his prime when he ran in 1848.</p><p><br /></p><p>All Lewis Cass medalets are scarce to rare. The Democrats avoided issuing campaign pieces because they had the odd idea that the voters had been insulted by the flood of pieces the Whigs issued in 1840.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here are some Cass pieces.</p><p><br /></p><p>Here is a rare Lewis Cass original example of HC 1848-1. It has a hole so that it could be worn with a string. &quot;The Sub Treasury&quot; refers a branch of the Treasury that conducted the government&#039;s banking business. It was the replacement for the Bank of the United States, which Andrew Jackson ended, and his &quot;pet banks&quot; which gave poor service. &quot;The tariff of forty six&quot; refers to a tariff reduction that occurred when James K. Polk was president. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1561863[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Here is restrike of the same piece. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1561864[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>You can tell that this is a restrike because it does not have a hole and there is a die break on the reverse that starts at the &quot;T&quot; in &quot;The.&quot; It was also struck on a thicker and heavier planchet. I have both types because the original piece cropped up in one of the DeWitt sales and did not sell for an arm and a leg. I never dreamed that I would own an original piece because there are supposed to be less than 10 known. </p><p><br /></p><p>There is another restrike. I have never seen an original piece for sale. The restrikes of both of these pieces were made for collectors circa 1860. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1561865[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;The constitution and the freedom of the seas&quot; was a pro-slavery message. According to the constitution, the import of slaves from overseas (Africa) was supposed to end in 1808. That didn&#039;t stop some people from continuing to do it. The illegal importation of slaves continued almost up until the Civil War. </p><p><br /></p><p>The British ended slavery in their colonies in the late 1830s. After that, they sent out their fleet in intercept any vessels that might be engaging in the illegal slave trade. Since it was illegal for U.S. vessels to bring slaves from Africa, the British incepted some U.S. ships. Cass was playing the the demagogue on this issue to please the slave owners. </p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1561867[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>This is the most Lewis Cass campaign token. If you are only going to get one piece for your collection, this is the only one that is somewhat easy to find. When I was dealer, I handled two of them.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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