The time Ohio and Michigan went to War: The Toledo War

The Toledo War was one of the first actions undertaken by two states over territorial disputes in the United States, while most of the previous ones were solved via the legal or diplomatic scene. This one resulted in Casualties.

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The Toledo War happened in 1835, between Ohio, a state, and Michigan, a territory, over a strip of land that included the town of Toledo, a major port city along the Great Lakes. Prior to the rise of the railroad industry, rivers and canals were the major "highways of commerce" in the American Midwest. Toledo fell within the Great Black Swamp, and this area was nearly impossible to navigate by road, especially after spring and summer rains, At the time, there were plans to connect the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes through a series of canals connecting through Toledo, but it never panned out.

Federal surveys never really concluded who owned the strip, as the boundaries for the land was stated at the southern edge of Lake Michigan, which at the time, was several miles north of its actual location, this left a dispute between Ohio and the territory of Michigan over the few miles of land. When Michigan gained enough population to seek statehood, it was rejected due to the Toledo dispute. With Ohio actively working against having Michigan become a state, and set up county governments within the strip, which only further exasperated the problem. The governor in Michigan at the time Stevens T. Mason, largely ignored the protests from D.C and set in motion a series of changes that would becoming of a state, such as it's constitution, supreme court, and a state legislature. He also passed the Pains and Penalties Act, the act made it a criminal offense for Ohioans to carry out governmental actions like voting in the Strip, with a fine up to $1,000, up to five years imprisonment or hard labor, sometimes both, and he also raised the state militia and sent them into Toledo. Under the command of Brigadier-General Joseph W. Brown, effectively starting the so called war. Brown occupied the town with around a thousand men, while the Governor of Ohio, Robert Lucus, raised 600 of the state militia and set them 10 miles to the south of Toledo.

President Andrew Jackson, sided with Ohio at the time, largely due to the political power that the state had in presidential elections, his Attorney General, stated that Michigan owned the land unless congress stated otherwise, and in response, Jackson sent two representatives from DC, to the disputed land. The ultimate conclusion from this, was that Congress would later settle the matter, and the residents within the disputed region would decide who they wanted to belong too. Lucas reluctantly agreed to the proposal, and began to disband the militia. Three days later, elections in the region were held under Ohio law. Mason refused the deal and various arrests were made under the pains and Penalties act of people that voted in the Ohio election.