Dixon Hall Lewis was descended from Robert Lewis, a native of Brecon, Wales, who settled in what is now Gloucester County, Virginia, about 1635. He was the son of Francis Lewis and his wife, Mary Dixon (Hall), who was related to the Bolling and Randolph families of Virginia. Dixon was born on August 10, 1802, probably in Dinwiddie County, Virginia, United States but throughout most of his childhood lived in Hancock County, Georgia.
He attended the famous Mount Zion Academy conducted by Rev. Nathan S. S. Beman, step-father of William Lowndes Yancey, and went thence to South Carolina College. He graduated in 1820.
In 1820 Lewis moved to Autauga County, Alabama, where he read the law under Judge Henry Hitchcock. He was admitted to the bar in 1823. Two years later he opened an office in Montgomery. Though he showed unusual capacity in his profession, the call of politics in the new state drew him to devote all his energies to government service. Lewis was elected to the lower house of the Alabama legislature in 1826 for three terms as an ardent advocate of state-rights principles.
His outstanding career in the legislature earned for him an election to Congress in 1829, at the early age of twenty-seven, and he continued in Washington till his death in 1848. He served in the House from 1829 to 1844, became chairman of the committee on ways and means, and in 1839 lost the speakership by four votes in a bitter contest with the Benton faction.
When William R. D. King, leader of the Union Democrats in Alabama, resigned from the Senate in 1844 to become minister to France, Lewis was appointed senator in his stead by Gov. Benjamin Fitzpatrick, his wife's brother-in-law. At the regular election in 1847 he defeated King, again a candidate, and Arthur Francis Hopkins, Whig leader, for the full term. In the Senate he continued to promote the principles he had advocated in the House.
After a short time he was made chairman of the committee on finance. Though he seldom spoke in Congress, he was commonly considered one of the most influential men in party councils and was exceedingly popular. All his life Lewis was afflicted with excessive flesh and in his later years weighed 450 pounds. His huge bulk necessitated special arrangements on stage-coaches, in the legislative chambers, and in the halls of Congress. He died in New York, whither he had gone to address a free-trade organization, and was buried with civic honors in Greenwood Cemetery.
Lewis came to be recognized as the leader of the faction in the Democratic party in Alabama which was opposed to every tendency towards centralization. He was one of the chief supporters of the state-rights doctrines and foremost in the organization of the State-Rights group. He was instrumental in framing and passing the Walker Tariff of 1846.
His political philosophy was largely influenced by his uncle, Bolling Hall, sometime representative in Congress from Georgia, a supporter of William H. Crawford, and a member of the so-called "Georgia faction" in Alabama politics. Hall was an intimate of the leaders of the extreme state-rights viewpoint in Virginia and Georgia and he strongly indoctrinated his nephew with that political philosophy. While in Congress, Lewis vigorously opposed, on constitutional grounds, the United States Bank, the high protective tariff, and internal improvements by the federal government.
Lewis was married, March 11, 1823, to Susan Elizabeth, daughter of Gen. John A. Elmore and sister of Franklin Harper Elmore. To them were born seven children.
