Michigan State Capitol Lansing following a decision made March 17, 1847, to move the capital from Detroit to Lansing. The Detroit building then became a public school (the Union School, at one time the city's only high school) and library until it burned in 1893. The 1835 Michigan Constitution provided that: Prior to 1847, Detroit fought to maintain the Capitol within its jurisdiction, but communities in the growing western part of the state had many reasons for wanting a move inland, including the need to increase defensibility by moving the state government away from the Canada–US border. Detroit had been occupied during the
Robert Lansing Robert Lansing Robert Lansing (; October 17, 1864 – October 30, 1928) was an American lawyer and Conservative Democratic politician who served as Legal Advisor to the State Department at the outbreak of World War I, and then as United States Secretary of State under President Woodrow Wilson from 1915 to 1920. Before U.S. involvement in the war, Lansing vigorously advocated in favor of the principles of freedom of the seas and the rights of neutral nations. He later advocated U.S. participation in World War I, negotiated the Lansing–Ishii Agreement with Japan in 1917 and was a member of the