Thomas Metcalfe was an American governor, representative, and senator.
Background
Thomas Metcalfe was born on March 20, 1780, in Fauquier County, Virginia. He was the son of Sally and John Metcalfe, a militia officer in the Revolutionary War. About 1784 the family moved to Fayette County and later to Nicholas County, Kentucky.
Education
After attending the common-schools, young Thomas learned the trade of the stone-mason, which he followed for some years.
Career
Entering politics, Metcalfe served in the lower house of the legislature from 1812 to 1816. During the War of 1812 he raised a company of volunteers and led them at the battle of Fort Meigs. He served in Congress from 1819 to 1828, where he was a strong exponent of Western democracy. In 1825, he followed Henry Clay in voting for Adams for president and in 1827 was nominated for governor by the Adams-Clay convention, the first ever held in Kentucky. After an active contest with William T. Barry, the Jacksonian candidate, he was elected by a close vote, 38, 940 to 38, 231. He promised to disregard party affiliations in making appointments, but the Jacksonians asserted that he did not do so. Thomas served as a governor from 1828 to 1832. Most of his recommendations to the legislature became law. Later he was state senator from 1834 to 1838, president of the Kentucky board of internal improvements, and a member of the national Whig convention of 1839. During the debates over slavery, while he was United States senator from 1848 to 1849, he denounced secession and declared that Kentucky would uphold the Union. He retired to his farm in Nicholas County, Kentucky, where he died.
Achievements
Politics
Metcalfe opposed the banks, advocated making a two-thirds vote of the federal Supreme Court necessary to declare a state law unconstitutional, and disapproved of the discontinuance of credit to purchasers of public land. In 1821 he proposed to grant preëmption rights to squatters. He also favored protective tariffs and internal improvements, and he opposed restriction upon slavery in Missouri or in other parts of the Louisiana Purchase.
As governor, he indorsed protective tariffs and federal aid for internal improvements, and he denounced nullification, the spoils system, and Jackson's veto of the bill for federal aid for the Maysville-Lexington turnpike. He also favored the American Colonization Society, protection of the occupying claimants of Kentucky lands, simplification of the judicial system, district schools and additional aid for education, abolition of the branches of the bank of the commonwealth, improvement of rivers and roads, and prison reform.