In 1841, Thomas was elected Governor of Maryland, defeating challenger William Cost Johnson by a margin of 600 votes. During his tenure as governor, he is perhaps best known for his highly publicized and violent divorce with his wife, Sally Campbell Preston McDowell. McDowell had left the marriage over claims of "violent jealous rages [that] made her fear for her life" and that prompted her father, Virginia Governor James McDowell, to seek out a bill of divorce from the Virginia General Assembly.[1][2] Until that event, he had been a leading candidate for Democratic nomination for President of the United States, but the divorce seriously disrupted his chances in succeeding in the nomination, and thus he did not pursue it.
As governor, Thomas inherited a major state deficit that he would not resolve in his tenure. He proposed a direct tax upon the people, which was widely unpopular, and did not raise adequate funds to allow repudiation of the debt. He was also a staunch opponent of slavery, a unique position in a border-state like Maryland, decrying it as "altogether unworthy of enlightened statesmen, and should be by all patriots repudiated". He served as governor from 1842 until 1845, narrowly beating William Cost Johnson,[3] who he succeeded as Maryland's 6th district congressman, in 1841 for a three-year term. Thomas was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1844.
Return to Congress
After his term as governor, Thomas served as a member of the Maryland State Constitutional convention in 1850. He was again elected to the Thirty-seventh Congress as a Unionist, as an Unconditional Unionist to the Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses, and as a Republican to the Fortieth Congress, serving from March 4, 1861 until March 3, 1869. When he left the House in 1869, he had served a total nine terms over almost four decades.
White, Frank F. Jr.; Heinrich Ewald Buchholz (1970). The Governors of Maryland 1777–1970. Annapolis: The Hall of Records Commission. pp. 123–126. OCLC144620.