Thomas Ewing, an American statesman, born in Ohio co., Va., Dec. 28, 1789, died at Lancaster, Ohio, Oct. 26, 1871. In his 20th year he left home and worked in the Kanawha salt establishments, until he had laid up money enough to pay for the farm which his father had purchased in 1792, in what is now Athens co., Ohio, and enabled himself to enter the Ohio university at Athens, where he graduated in 1815. He studied law in Lancaster, Ohio, was admitted to the bar in 1816, and practised with great success in the state courts and the supreme court of the United States. In March, 1831, he took his seat in the United States senate. He spoke against confirming the nomination of Van Buren as minister to Great Britain, supported the protective tariff system of Clay, and advocated a reduction of the rates of postage, a recharter of the United States bank, and the revenue collection bill known as the force bill." In 1834, and again in 1835, as a member of the committee on post offices and post roads, he presented a majority report on abuses in the post office which resulted in the reorganization of that department.

He opposed the removal of the deposits from the United States bank, and on Dec. 21, 1835, introduced a bill for the settlement of the Ohio boundary question, which was passed March 11 and June 15, 1836. During the same session he brought forward a hi]]. which became a law, for the reorganization of the general land office; and on several occasions he opposed the policy of granting preemption rights to settlers on the public lands. He spoke against the admission of Michigan, and presented a memorial for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the District of Columbia, which he insisted ought to be referred, though he was opposed to granting the prayer of the memorialists. In July, 183(5, the secretary of the treasury issued what was known as the specie circular," directing receivers in land offices to accept payments only in gold, silver, or treasury certificates, except from certain classes of persons for a limited time. In December Mr. Ewing brought in a bill to annul this circular, and another declaring it unlawful for the secretary to make such discrimination, but the bills were not carried. His term expired in March, 1837, and he resumed the practice of his profession.

In 1841 he was appointed secretary of the treasury by President Harrison, and retained that office under President Tyler. His first official report proposed the imposition of 20 per cent. ad valorem duties on certain articles for the relief of the national debt, disapproved the independent treasury act passed the preceding year, and urged the establishment of a national bank. He was requested to prepare a bill for the last purpose, which was passed with some alteration, but was vetoed by the president. Mr. Tyler thereupon indicated a plan for a bank of moderate capital for the regulation of exchanges, and at his request Mr. Ewing helped to frame a charter, which was immediately passed and in turn vetoed. Mr. Ewing, with all the other members of the cabinet except Mr. Webster, consequently resigned (September, 1841). On the accession of Gen. Taylor to the presidency in 1849, he took office as secretary of the newly created department of the interior, which he organized. Among the measures recommended in his first report, Dec. 3, 1849, were the extension of the public land laws to California, New Mexico, and Oregon, the establishment of a mint near the California gold mines, and the construction of a road to the Pacific. On the death of Taylor and the accession of Fillmore, in 1850, Mr. Corwin became secretary of the treasury, and Mr. Ewing was appointed by the governor of Ohio to serve during Corwin's unexpired term in the senate.

In this body he refused to vote for the fugitive slave law, opposed Clay's compromise bill, reported from the committee on finance a bill for the establishment of a branch mint in California, and advocated a reduction of postage, river and harbor appropriations, and the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. In 1851 he retired from public life. Among the most elaborate of his written professional arguments are those in the cases of Oliver v. Piatt et al., involving the title to a large part of Toledo, Ohio; the Methodist church division; the MeIntire poor school v. Zanesville; and the MeMicken will, involving large bequests for education. In February, 1861, he was a delegate from Ohio to the peace conference in Washington.-Thomas, his son, born at Lancaster, Ohio, Aug. 7, 1829, was chief justice of Kansas in 1861, served in the civil war, and received the brevet of major general of volunteers in 1864.