History Time! Michigan Enabling and Statehood Acts

Many states proudly post the text of the legislation establishing their statehood on their governmental web site. Michigan does not do this, probably because the Enabling Act of 1836 has the shameful title of "An Act to establish the northern boundary line of the State of Ohio, and to provide for the admission of the State of Michigan into the Union upon the conditions therein expressed." So, as a public service at the start of Year 178, here is the text of the Michigan statehood act of January 26, 1837.

An Act to admit the State of Michigan into the Union, upon an equal footing with the original States.

Whereas, in pursuance of the act of Congress of June the fifteenth, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, entitled “An act to establish the northern boundary of the State of Ohio, and to provide for the admission of the State of Michigan into the Union upon the conditions therein expressed,” a convention of delegates, elected by the people of the said State of Michigan, for the sole purpose of giving their assent to the boundaries of the said State of Michigan as described, declared, and established, in and by the said act, did, on the fifteenth of December, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, assent to the provisions of the said act, therefore:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the State of Michigan shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one, of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the original States, in all respects whatever.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of the Treasury, in carrying into effect the thirteenth and fourteenth sections of the act of the twenty-third of June, eighteen hundred and thirty-six, entitled, “An act to regulate the deposites of the public money,” shall consider the State of Michigan as being one of the United States.

APPROVED, January 26, 1837.

After the jump, the aforementioned Enabling Act of 1836.

Everybody Talks

May/June is the down time of down times for college football fans.  Spring practices are in the books, the NFL Draft has come and gone, and we're too far out from the fall to have any kind of meaningful discussion with regard to the season forthcoming.  But the college football machine is one that is fed, day in and day out, by the tiniest morsels of information become three day stories.  The cycle of news spins ever faster, the ability to disseminate the smallest fragments of a notion of an idea become fodder.  I'm guilty of feeding this machine but I am also give pause.

This week alone, three stories struck me and I was left to wonder why?
1). Brady Hoke, speaking at an awards banquet in his hometown of Kettering, Ohio, when asked a question about a move toward potential super conferences, said that he could see it, and could see the Big East going away.

2). David Brandon, speaking to the Wolverine Caucus in Lansing, discussed the fundamental changes he has brought to the Michigan athletic department since his arrival.
3). Jim Delany spoke about the president of the B1G preference to the current BCS system, then a plus one, then a four team playoff, but one that was not wedded to a flawed system of polling.

Each of these stories caused disconcert among the Twitterati, created air for sports radio fans**, and endless ability to snark.  I want to handle each one point by point because they all speak to something different.

1). Brady Hoke's superconference answer ultimately means nothing.  He was asked a question at an event where he was the honored guest.  People want to know the opinion of a major figure in the world of college football, and with conference realignment, superconferences have been much on the minds of people who have an interest in college football.  Brady gave his opinion based on what he knows.  Does this carry any more weight than a conference commissioner, or a school president, or an athletic director, or a television executive.  No.  But, many more people know Brady Hoke than many of those other people, so even those Coach Hoke's information may be more limited, his words carry more weight.

"But look, I'm just a coach. I don't know all of it."

Similarly, this wouldn't have even been a story ten years ago.  Now, every comment at every banquet or speaking engagement is a blog post.

2). David Brandon's remarks to the Wolverine Caucus are another in the master plays of "David Brandon's guide to messaging during the off-season".  Hmm, you mean David Brandon, the CEO of Michigan athletics, is speaking to a bunch of government leaders who self-select as Michigan fans or alums enough to attend a meeting of this nature?  You mean there will be press present?  You mean you want to show off how visionary you are because perhaps you still harbor visions of running for governor somewhere down the line?  So you talk about change, about the future, about moving forward, about revenue streams, to people who are receptive to this kind of dialogue.  Why?  Because you stay on message, because that's your job.

3). Delany's comments, which came after a teleconference of the B1G's presidents, are important because I think so many in the national media are missing something here.  Why are so many people convinced that Jim Delany is bad at his job?  Jim Delany may be passionate about the Rose Bowl, Jim Delany may be a traditionalist, but Jim Delany was also the guy who figured out the Big Ten Network, at a time when almost everyone was skeptical about it, and turned it into a cash cow which essentially launched conference realignment into the stratosphere.  So is it possible that Jim Delany is negotiating in public* by setting a B1G position far enough out that the conference and its member schools can give up things that they have publicly stated are meaningful to them, but of which privately they believe that they can be used as bargaining chips?  Delany knows that the SEC holds many of the cards, but sometimes its not about holding the cards.

*--Just because I can't help myself, I am reminded of political scientist Hans Morgenthau's nine rules for successful diplomacy and can see at least four of them at work, tangentially, for Delany:


"The objectives of foreign policy must be defined in terms of the national interest and must be supported with adequate power." Define your interests narrowly, stressing that which really matters, and make sure you have enough power for that purpose.


"Diplomacy must look at the political scene from the point of view of other nations." Other countries have national interests, too, and so long as they are limited and rational they are legitimate.


"Nations must be willing to compromise on all issues that are not vital to them." If you've observed the first three rules, you will be able to see what is vital and what is not. If your adversary does the same, you can find a middle ground.


"Give up the shadow of worthless rights for the substance of real advantage." Don't worry about scoring legal or propaganda points; look to see what you're really getting in terms of national interest.


Now, all of that said, the fact that the B1G ADs caved so readily on campus semifinals sites seems to violate the fourth one on the list there, but still, I think there's something to this.


My point, in all of this, if there is one, is that I think we need to consider the speaker, the venue, and their motives when examining anything that people say, especially at this slow time of year.  Otherwise we're just spinning our wheels.


**--Yes, I realize this footnote is not following the format of the others, but as much as I like The Scott Van Pelt Show, I was upset by the fact that on yesterday's show, Scott and Ryen were so ready to tell the Big Ten that the Rose Bowl is dead without thinking about what the Rose Bowl means to fans of B1G schools.  Just because the ACC or even, to a certain degree, SEC, have a long term, long standing, over century old tie to the Rose Bowl does not mean that fans of schools in those footprints have the right to tell the B1G and its fans that we're stupid for having a fondness for something that occupies a special place in our history.  Whether you want to argue that the B1G is consistently hosed by this arrangement is a whole other discussion worth having, but that is not the one being had at present.

Seal Block Special Edition: Little brother from another mother

The name "University of Cristal" was also briefly considered.

If ESPN and TSN (aka ESPN Canada) were to somehow convince Canadian universities to care about varsity sports even a tenth as much as American universities do, the next round of Big Ten expansion would have two obvious candidates for admission: The University of Toronto, the centre of Canada's largest TV market, and my undergraduate alma mater, The University of Western Ontario, the home of Canada's proudest university football tradition. Both schools would have to make enormous facilities upgrades for this to happen, and Toronto would have to stop being terrible at football, but academically both would be excellent fits for the CIC. Having two Canadian schools in the Big Ten hockey conference would help replace the Canadian Hockey League with a slightly less corrupt player development model, which would also be nice.

UWO has recently announced a major new marketing push asking for people to call it "Western." To Canadians, this is hilarious as no other province has a western directional school. We all call it Western already. The American equivalent to this would be the University of California at Los Angeles spending tons of money on marketing to convince people to call it UCLA.

This marketing push includes a quote from the university president which may go down as one of the stupidest most WTF things ever said by a university president ever:

Harvard isn’t just Harvard. It’s Harvard University. But you don’t have to say university. How long will it take Western to get there, I don’t know. Our goal is to become such a recognized brand that just Western means us.

I've been trying to make a snarky comment in response to that and I can't. I'm so confused that the best I could think to do was put in a snarky post tag.

Old logo: We have a tower!
New logo: Stag and lion slap-fight! Winner gets maple syrup!

I didn't enjoy my undergraduate years. People bragged a lot about how great they were, but backed up their boasts with alcohol consumption instead of academic performance. I really don't like getting the alumni magazine because it's a lot of fluff about how great the school is and far too little about the interesting stuff people are actually doing. It's like the school has an inferiority complex. Recently it hit me: UWO is Michigan State. It's Toronto's little brother.

Pants Party! (Part 1)

Geoff:  On Friday (and well into Saturday), Craig and I represented the Michigan blogging community at the Deadspin Midwest Pants Party in Chicago. What follows is a horrifying tale of baseball and karaoke and goblins. OK, fine. Not goblins. Or "horrifying". Rather the opposite of that, in fact. But the other two stand.

Ducking out a little early from work, I managed to get to the traffic jams of the Dan Ryan by 4:30 CDT and I even made it to our pre-game destination, Schaller's Pump, by 5:00. I was ready to join the pants partiers inside, when...they all literally walked out the door as soon as I opened it. It was just like high school pep band when our director would finally cue up a song just in time for play to resume. Everyone fell into place for the obligatory group photo, and I snuck into the back row.

This is what people from the internet look like.

At least I was in time for the walk over to US Cellular Field, just a few blocks away. Lady Andrea (of Ladies... and DeadOn), because she is a sweet and nice person, noticed that I was not someone she'd met, so she came over to talk to me. Let me tell you, it's really weird introducing yourself by your internet pseudonym, especially when it relates in no way to your real name. "Hi, I'm Geoff, or 'The Bad One'" doesn't sound like anything normal people say. PS – Believe the hype:

Look! A girl!

Our intrepid organizer, PeteJayhawk (who deserves massive, massive thanks for all of this) led us over to our gate. We had patio tickets, so in this big cafeteria-like space under the right field bleachers we had all the beer, wine, and food we could eat and/or drink, which meant I had more beer spilled on me than any time since I was an undergrad, but it was all good. Across the table from me, Tuffy and JB* kept finding orphaned beers, so we gave them good homes.

Eventually Craig (aka Yostal) showed up, released from the clutches of the AP test, and started making the rounds. The crowd at the table started thinning out, so the two of us figured everyone had gone up to our seats. We were a little surprised, then, to find our section almost completely empty on into the third inning. Silly us for focusing on the game when free beer was still at hand. Even when everyone showed up, we were kind of far away from a lot of the regular commentariat, but that gave us a chance to meet some other fine folks, like Rany Jazayerli of Baseball Prospectus and a Michigan State fan in a Tigers cap whose name may or may not be Joe. One of the benefits, though, of showing up early was that we saw our shout-out on the scoreboard (The message? "DEADSPIN").

The game itself wasn't bad (it ended 2-1, Sox), but it wasn't that exciting without a dog in the fight. A home run ball landed as close to me as any I've had in baseball – it came down about a section away from us – and we mocked the Royals for their two errors. Craig was heckled for his Tigers cap, and it was nice to be able to respond with "SCOREBOARD! SCOREBOARD!" to that. Craig would me like to mention, though, that the "LET'S GO BUCKEYES!" directed at me was out of line, since we were at a baseball game, after all.

After the game let out, the police seemed determined that I not go the way I wanted, and so I wound my way through the South Side up to our hotel at McCormick Place, where we dumped our bags and caught a cab. We'd been given a vague location for the bar we'd be post-gaming at of "Damen and Milwaukee" and the address of "1540", which we gave to our cabbie, a shriveled old white guy. He asked where we were from. To Craig's "Outside of Detroit," he replied, "Detroit? Hellhole." Your service industry employees, ladies and gentlemen! Even better? He dropped us NINE BLOCKS from Damen and Milwaukee, and left us with no idea where to go once we realized that. We did find it, but we took the looooooong way around.

The Greatest Generation makes for lousy cabbies

It was all worth it, though, when we found everyone at the Pontiac Cafe on the corner of Pierce and Damen, arriving just in time to watch Lady Andrea rock Scandal's "Goodbye to You" for live band karaoke. I recommend you just go over to Ladies... for her write-up and pictures, because there's no way I can do any better. I'll wait...

...Finished? Good.

I'd like to commend Craig for his performance of U2's "Desire", which was an inspired change from Cheap Trick's "I Want You To Want Me." I signed up for the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K.", but was skipped by the head karaoke dude, which is a terrible injustice, as my version was going to be PHENOMENAL**. We stayed at the Pontiac Cafe long enough to close the joint down. Some Deadspinners were in favor of finding a 4AM bar, but Craig and I had to be up and out of our hotel before 10:00, so we caught a cab back to our hotel (much better, though even this guy told us that Detroit was "full of gangs").

In the end, it was all over too soon, I barely got to talk to half the people I met, and I can't wait for the next edition. Deadspin commenters are remarkably cool people, and I hope to hang out with them more in the future.

---

* The "*" in "JB*" is part of his screenname
** By which I mean "somewhere between terrible and adequate"

Pants Party (Part 2)

Craig: 
It was 2:19 when the final bell rang and I could get out of work, but not before I changed out of my khaki pants and high school official polo shirt into a maroon number and some long khaki shorts. Getting on the road at 2:45 EDT, I began blasting towards Chicago as quickly as good sense and the legal limit would allow, and I was doing great until I hit Marshall and a huge construction backup that largely stemmed from people not understanding the concept of zippertooth merging. The entire drive to Chicago was just a race in my head between where I was on I-94, what time it was on the clock, and where and when I wanted to be. I made it, but not before the temperature had dropped nearly 35 degrees since I had left SE Michigan!

One of the stranger moments of sitting with a bunch of knowledgeable sports fan is the mini-conundrum that erupted from a random stat placed on the board, showing that between 2000 and 2007, the White Sox had the best overall record in the AL Central. Given where we were sitting in the outfield, our collective vision was blocked from seeing whom the bottom two teams were, and Geoff and I presumed that the Tigers were bringing up the rear of the AL Central, whereas the rest of the group presumed it was the Royals, only for us to collectively realize that no one was completely sure (some research upon my return to SE Michigan indicated that it was in fact the Royals bringing up the rear)

A note on my karaoke performance: I am not at all musically gifted, and I know this, so that is why song choice was so critical in this regard. "I Want You To Want Me", while a great song, is much more about the awesome interplay of the whole band as one in it, and has a really tricky fast word section "Feelingallalonewithoutafriendyouknowyoufeellikedyin..." whereas "Desire", well, no one is actually going to be able to sound like Bono, but you can try and hit the inflections and the nuances of the song and can pull off something reasonable. I was also aided by harmonica accompaniment for the last section, which was pretty cool as well. Sadly (or really, THANKFULLY), no video exists of my performance, so we cannot prove or disprove my thesis. I also want to say that Geoff would have rocked "Anarchy in the UK" hard, since so few songs are in his deep range, he knows where his bread is buttered. And it still would have been less terrifying for Geoff to sing "I am an Antichrist" than Will's entire performance.

Was it a perfect trip? No, but what is? In a world where GZ and I are both used to pinpoint planning and control over every aspect of what we're going to do in the collective, this was some minor chaos. But, minor chaos breeds stories to tell, memories to have, and things upon which perhaps to improve the next time. We met with a great group of people who didn't disappoint and who welcomed all comers in like a demented family reunion. Going in blind, it was much more than for what I could have hoped.