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Thomas Ewing Biography

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EWING, Thomas (1789-1871). An American statesman, born in Ohio Co., West Va. He graduated at Ohio University (Athens, Ohio) in 1815. The year following he studied law and was admitted to the bar at Lancaster, where he began his practice. In 1831 he was elected as a Whig to the United States Senate. He was a strong advocate of the recharter of the United States Bank and protested vigorously against the action of Jackson in withdrawing the government deposits from it, and after the "specie circular" of Secretary Woodbury was issued in 1836 proposed a measure for its annulment. After the expiration of his senatorial term in 1837 he resumed the practice of his profession, but served as Secretary of the Treasury from March till September, 1841, when he retired because of the differences between President Tyler and the Whig party. In 1849 Ewing again entered the cabinet, this time as the first Secretary of the newly established Department of the Interior. In June, 1850, he was appointed by the Governor of Ohio a United States senator, to serve the, unexpired term of Thomas Corwin, who had resigned to enter Fillmore's newly constituted cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury. He remained in the Senate until 1851. He was a delegate to the Peace Congress at Washington in 1861 but unreservedly supported the Lincoln administration during the Civil War.