Thomas Ewing. Courtesy of the Library of Congress (LC-USZ62-43497).

Ewing, Thomas (28 Dec. 1789-26 Oct. 1871), first Secretary of the Interior, fourteenth Secretary of the United States Treasury, and United States senator from Ohio, was born in West Liberty, Virginia (later West Virginia), the son of George Ewing, a farmer who served as an officer in the Revolutionary War, and Rachel Harris Ewing.

Like so many young men at the time, Ewing worked long hours on his father's farm. Unlike most others, however, he spent his free time reading whatever books he could get his hands on. Euclid was his favorite author and Don Quixote his favorite book. At eighteen, Ewing took a job as a common laborer at the Kanawha salt-works, partly to help fend off forfeiture of his father's farm, but mostly to pay for his education at the "academy in Athens," the recently founded Ohio University. In 1815 he received an A.B., the first student to receive such a degree from a college in Ohio.

In 1810, while delivering a load of salt to Marietta, Ohio, Ewing visited his first courthouse and observed the proceedings of a criminal case. He resolved to become a lawyer. He studied law under General Philemon Beecher, a congressman from Ohio, and became his partner upon passing the bar in 1816. Ewing served as a prosecuting attorney in Fairfield County for many years and eventually argued before the United States Supreme Court.

Ewing's first foray into politics came in 1823 when he ran unsuccessfully for the Ohio state legislature as a candidate of the National Republican Party. The National Republicans grew out of the tensions within Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. The National Republicans supported John Quincy Adams and opposed Andrew Jackson. The party platform was predicated on Henry Clay's American System, which advocated nationally financed internal improvements and protective tariffs. Ewing and his party saw the nation as an organic whole too often threatened by local interests. When the National Republican Party fell apart in the early 1830s, Ewing joined the Whig Party, which was formed in opposition to Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party and favored congressional supremacy over the autocratically-inclined executive branch, as well as modernization and economic protectionism.

In 1830 Ewing was elected to the United States Senate as a Whig, where he vehemently attacked the newly formed Democratic Party and Jackson's hard money (gold and silver coins) "Specie Circular" that predicated federal land purchases on scarce commodities, thereby blocking the purchases of working-class Americans. Senator Ewing continued to argue for a United States Bank and Clay's protective tariff. He also backed the hotly debated "Force Bill," which was intended to facilitate revenue collection. In 1836 Ewing failed to secure a second term--defeated by William Allen--in part because of his opposition to the increasingly popular policies of President Andrew Jackson.

On January 7, 1820, Ewing married Maria Wills Boyle, who was niece and ward to Ewing's law partner Philemon Beecher. They had six children, including Thomas Ewing, Jr., --the first chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court and later a Democratic congressman from Ohio--and Hugh Boyle Ewing--lawyer, Union military officer, and novelist. Ewing, Sr., also became a foster parent to Tecumseh Sherman, who became Union General William Tecumseh Sherman of "scorched earth" fame. Sherman married Ewing's daughter, Eleanor Boyle Ewing, in 1829.

In 1841 President William Henry Harrison appointed Ewing Secretary of the Treasury, where he helped draft bills to charter a national bank. Harrison's death in April brought John Tyler--dubbed the "Accidental President"--to the White House. Tyler vetoed a series of banking bills, which Ewing and his fellow Whigs supported, and in September the entire cabinet resigned in protest. After just six months in office, Ewing returned to Ohio and established a successful law practice, arguing such cases as Oliver v. Pratt and McIntire Poor School v. Zanesville.

In 1849 President Zachary Taylor invited Ewing to be the Secretary of the newly established Department of the Interior. As Secretary of the Interior, Ewing consolidated bureaus from various departments. He fired many bureaucrats to allow him to head a patronage program, prompting newspapers nickname him "Butcher Ewing." Although the department was responsible for a variety of activities, it accomplished little on Ewing's watch. "Everything upon the face of God's earth will go into the Home Department," noted one observer (Learned, p. 768).

President Taylor's death at the height of the debate over the Compromise of 1850 brought Millard Fillmore to the presidency and yet another cabinet resignation. President Fillmore appointed Ohio Senator Thomas Corwin Secretary of the Treasury, which provided Ohio Governor Seabury Ford the opportunity to appoint Ewing to the vacated Senate seat. As senator, Ewing opposed the Fugitive Slave Law but supported the unconditional admission of California to the Union. Ewing was defeated in his 1851 bid for reelection but was appointed a delegate to the Virginia-sponsored Peace Conference of 1861. Although he supported Abraham Lincoln throughout the Civil War, Ewing's conservative bent made him a staunch opponent of congressional Reconstruction. Indeed, Ewing eventually switched to the Democratic Party and even advised President Andrew Johnson. In 1868 President Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin McMasters Stanton--against the advice of Ewing--and appointed Ewing to replace him. Because many members of the Senate were outraged at President Johnson's skirting of the 1867 Tenure of Office Act, the Senate refused to take action on Ewing's nomination, preferring instead to impeach Johnson. President Johnson escaped conviction by one vote, but Ewing never became Secretary of War.

Thomas Ewing died in Lancaster, Ohio. Obituaries described Ewing as a physically and intellectually strong man, as demonstrated by his labors in the salt-works and his brilliance in the courtroom. Though not a gifted speaker, he commanded the respect of others by dint of his enduring principles. Although it was "not a usual matter for the court to notice in its proceedings the death of members of the bar," reporter John William Wallace of the United States Supreme Court engaged in "a departure from the practice" by opening his volume XII of the United States Reports (Volume 79) with a tribute to Ewing.

Various newspaper articles outline the different phases of Ewing's life, including "The Attempted Removal of Secretary Stanton," published in the New York Timeson 24 Feb. 1868. A death announcement, "Death of the Hon. Thomas Ewing," appeared in United States Reports, Volume 79, in 1871. Another memorial, Memorial of Thomas Ewing of Ohio, was published by the Catholic Publication Society in 1873. Broader examinations of Ewing's life appear in "The Autobiography of Thomas Ewing," Ohio History: The Scholarly Journal of the Ohio Historical Society, Vol. 22, and Henry B. Learned's "The Establishment of the Secretaryship of the Interior," in American Historical Review 16 (1911).