David B. Henderson
David Bremner Henderson (March 14, 1840 – February 25, 1906), a ten-term Republican congressman from Dubuque, Iowa, was the speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1899 to 1903. He was the first congressman from west of the Mississippi River, the last Civil War veteran, the second foreign-born person (after Charles Frederick Crisp), and the only Iowan to serve as Speaker.
David Bremner Henderson
February 25, 1906 (aged 65)
Dubuque, Iowa, United States
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Civil War service[edit]
Henderson served in the Union Army during the Civil War and was wounded severely twice, once in the neck and later in the leg, which resulted in progressive amputations of that leg. He enlisted in the Union Army on September 15, 1861, as a private in Company C, 12th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Henderson was elected and commissioned first lieutenant of that company. In the Battle of Fort Donelson, he was shot in the neck in the final charge over the breastworks.[2] After returning to the Regiment in April 1862, he lost one foot and part of one leg at the Second Battle of Corinth in October 1862.[3] He was discharged on February 26, 1863, due to his wounds, and returned to Iowa. After serving as commissioner of the board of enrollment of the third district of Iowa from May 1863 to June 1864, he re-entered the Army as colonel of the new 46th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment, one of the "Hundred Days Men" regiments, and commanded the Regiment until it was mustered out in September 1864.[4]
Law practice[edit]
Henderson was a successful lawyer prior to pursuing his political career. After studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1865 and commenced practice in Dubuque. He was the collector of internal revenue for the third district of Iowa from November 1865 to June 1869, when he resigned to accept a position as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Iowa, where he served until 1871. He was in private practice in Dubuque until 1882.[2]
Congressman and committee chair[edit]
In 1882, Henderson was elected as a Republican to represent Iowa's 3rd congressional district in the U.S. House, where he served from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1903. He ran for Speaker of the House when the 51st Congress convened in 1889,[5] finishing well behind Thomas Brackett Reed and runner-up William McKinley.[6] He served as the chairman of the Committee on Militia in the 51st Congress, and chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary in the 54th and 55th congresses. He was also the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Appropriations during the 52nd and 53rd congresses, when the House had a Democratic majority. When Republicans regained the majority after the 1894 elections, Speaker Reed broke from tradition by returning the chairmanship to Joseph Gurney Cannon, who had served more nonconsecutive terms in the House and would have outranked Henderson had Cannon not lost his House seat for two years.
Henderson was an aggressive debater and an intense Republican partisan. He seems to have loved a fight; he got into enough of them from his very first term, exercising his power of personal vituperation and abuse against Democrats whenever he found grounds to do so. "I would rather spend an eternity in hell with a Confederate than an eternity in heaven with a northern Copperhead," he told one crowd.[7] His secret for political success came from combining mainstream Republican causes with those dear to the hearts of his farmland constituency. In the summer of 1886, he led House forces in favor of levying a high tax on oleomargarine. At the same time he sponsored a bill to raise the benefits for veterans' widows by fifty percent. (On the final passage of another bill he favored, increasing the pensions of disabled veterans, Henderson withheld his vote, since he would stand among the beneficiaries). His commitment to pension legislation, general and individual, marked his whole career and took up most of his time. No member did more than he in that respect.[8]
Death and honors[edit]
After leaving Congress, Henderson practiced law in New York City until health problems caused him to retire to Southern California.[2] Henderson died in Dubuque on February 25, 1906, aged 65. He is buried at Linwood Cemetery in Dubuque.
His portrait hangs in the speakers' room in the U.S. Capitol, and statues of Henderson by J. Massey Rhind are found in the collections of the Iowa State Historical Society and in Clermont.[2]
"Allison-Henderson Park," in Dubuque, shares his name with that of six-term U.S. Senator William B. Allison, another citizen of Dubuque.