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 Lansing resumed practicing law. He died in New York City on October 30, 1928, and was buried at Brookside Cemetery in Watertown, New York. In 1890, Lansing married Eleanor Foster, the daughter of Secretary of State John W. Foster. Eleanor's older sister Edith was the mother of John Foster Dulles, who also became Secretary of State, Allen Welsh Dulles who served as Director of Central Intelligence, and Eleanor Lansing Dulles, an economist and high level policy analyst and advisor for the State Department. New York State Senator Robert Lansing (1799–1878) was his grandfather; Chancellor John Lansing Jr. and State Treasurer