Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan

Thomas McKean Thompson McKennan ( born March 31, 1794 in New Castle, Delaware; † July 9, 1852 in Reading, Pennsylvania ) was an American politician of the Whig party. He was a member of the Cabinet of President Millard Fillmore as Secretary of the Interior, put this post but after eleven days down.

Early years of life

As a child born in Delaware McKennan moved with his parents to Pennsylvania, where the family settled in Washington. He attended the public schools, then graduated from the local Washington & Jefferson College and was admitted to the bar in 1814, after which he began practicing in Washington. Between 1815 and 1816 he held the position of Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania for a short time.

Political career

From 1830 to McKennan operated as a politician. He was elected for the Anti- Masonic Party in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served after repeated re-election until 1839. When he returned for another year in the Congress in 1842, he was like many other members of the Anti -Masonic movement switched to the Whigs. Although his party friends in Washington County urged him to another candidacy, renounced McKennan and pointed out that he had his duty to the public now fulfilled. It was time again to focus on his law practice.

In the 1848 presidential election, he was a member of the Electoral College that elected the Whig candidate Zachary Taylor into the country's highest office. When Taylor died a year after he took office and his Vice President Millard Fillmore became the successor, Thomas McKennan wore this to the post of Minister of the Interior. He stayed first with his refusal to accept a public office, then let himself but persuaded by friends and colleagues. On 15 August 1850 he was the successor of the first incumbent Thomas Ewing, regretted his decision but almost immediately. Only eleven days later he resigned already.

During this short tenure managed McKennan anyway, at least engage in a political accent. As interior minister, he was in charge of the census of 1850, when it was obviously came with regard to the privacy of the people questioned irregularities. In a circular letter to the U.S. Marshals appointed for this purpose McKennan made ​​it clear that all information gathered by the staff facts are intended exclusively for the government and neither should use to satisfy their curiosity to the financial benefit of the interviewer.

After his resignation, Thomas McKennan took a less strenuous task as president of the Hempfield Railroad Company. This railway company operating the building of a distance between Wheeling in Virginia and Greensburg, Pennsylvania, led by his own residence Washington. While he was in business affairs in Reading, McKennan died on 9 July 1852. He was buried at the cemetery in Washington.