Thomas Samuel Ashe

Background

Thomas Samuel Ashe was born on July 21, 1812 in Hawfields, North Carolina, United States. He was the son of Pasquale Paoli Ashe and Elizabeth Strudwick, born at his maternal grandfather's home, "The Hawfields, " in Orange County.

Education

Ashe attended the Bingham School in Orange County and the University of North Carolina, where he graduated in 1832.

After graduation he studied law under Chief Justice Thomas Ruffin and in 1836 began practise at Wadesboro, North Carolina.

Career

In 1842 he was elected as a Whig to the House of Commons. In 1848 the legislature elected him solicitor and he served for four years. In 1854 he was again elected to the legislature, this time as a member of the Senate. In 1859 he declined to accept a nomination to Congress.

In February 1861 the legislature submitted to the people of the state the question of a convention, providing for the election of delegates at the same time. Ashe was chosen as a Union candidate, but the people refused to ratify the call and the delegates never assembled. Although originally a Union man, Ashe held that North Carolina should tolerate no attempt on the part of the United States to coerce the seceded states, and when the call for troops came he advocated secession.

In November 1861 he was elected to the Confederate Congress and served one term as a consistent supporter of the administration. On December 9, 1864, he was elected to the Confederate Senate, defeating Edwin G. Reade, who was supported by the peace party in the state, but before his term began the Confederate Congress had ceased to exist. In 1868 at the first election under the Reconstruction constitution, he was nominated by the conservative party for governor.

Although he was prevented by Gen. Canby's orders from voting in the election, he accepted the nomination and made an active campaign against the ratification of the new constitution. He was defeated by William Woods Holden.

In 1872 he was elected a member of the Forty-third Congress, and served two terms. In his second term as a member of the judiciary committee he aided in drawing up the articles of impeachment against William Worth Belknap, secretary of war, and in the deliberations concerning the electoral commission bill.

He also took some part in the investigation of James G. Blaine at the time of the Mulligan Letters exposé. The principle of rotation in office being then widely accepted in his state, he was not a candidate for renomination, but returned to the practise of law.

In his profession, indeed, was to be found his major interest, and his nomination by the Democratic party, in 1878, for associate justice of the supreme court of the state opened to him the career for which by training, temperament, and taste he was best fitted. He served with credit in a court which had high standards, and his opinions rank well. Elected the first time to fill a vacancy, he was reelected in 1880 and again in 1886.

Achievements

• Ashe was actively engaged in politics, delivered a speech and participated in the investigation of James G. Blaine in the Mulligan Letters scandal.

Religion

Quietly and simply religious, he was for many years a vestryman in the Episcopal Church.

Personality

Among Ashe's chief characteristics were a rare modesty, a high spirit of personal independence, a manly courage and inflexible virtue. His disposition was kindly; his impulses were chivalrous and noble, and his sentiments exalted.

Ashe was possessed of rather striking beauty. He was tall and imposing, with a fine head of abundant dark, later gray, hair, smiling gray eyes, firm mouth, and clear, ruddy skin.

Connections

In 1837 He married Caroline, daughter of George W. B. Burgwin of "The Hermitage, " New Hanover County. They had ten children.

Father:

Pasquale Paoli Ashe

Mother:

Elizabeth (Strudwick) Ashe

Spouse:

Caroline Attilia (Burgwin) Ashe

Daughter :

Mariah Nash (Ashe) Marshall

Daughter :

Caroline Burguin (Ashe) Lockhart

Daughter :

Josephine Ashe

Daughter :

Eliza Strudwick (Ashe) Hines

Daughter :

Annie Ruffin (Ashe) Battle

Daughter :

Martha Lucia Ashe

Uncle:

William Shepperd Ashe

Son:

John H. Ashe

Son :

William Cincinnatus Ashe

Son :

Edmund Paoli Ashe

Son :

Samuel Thomas Ashe