Thomas Brackett Reed
Thomas Brackett Reed Jr. (October 18, 1839 – December 7, 1902) was an American attorney, author, parliamentarian and Republican Party politician from Maine who served as the 32nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1889 to 1891 and 1895 to 1899. He represented Maine's 1st congressional district in the House from 1877 to 1899 and, prior to his time in Congress, represented Portland in the Maine legislature and served as Attorney General of Maine. In 1876, he was elected to represent Cumberland and York counties in the U.S. House and was re-elected for twelve consecutive terms.[a]
Thomas B. Reed
Charles F. Crisp
October 18, 1839
Portland, Maine, U.S.
December 7, 1902 (aged 63)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Evergreen Cemetery, Portland, Maine
Attorney
United States (Union)
1864–1865
Acting Assistant Paymaster
As Speaker, Reed had greater influence over the agenda and operations of the House than any prior Speaker. His first term was marked by a dramatic expansion of the Speaker's formal authority through changes to the House Rules, and he remains one of the most powerful Speakers in House history. He set out to put into practical effect his dictum "The best system is to have one party govern and the other party watch"[1] and dramatically increased the power of the Speaker over the House by limiting the ability of the minority party to prevent the establishment of a quorum.[2][3] Reed helped pass the Lodge Bill, which sought to protect African American voting rights in the Southern United States, but the bill failed in the Senate and never became law.
In 1896, he ran for president on a hard currency platform but lost the Republican nomination to William McKinley. While serving as Speaker in 1899, Reed resigned from the House in opposition to growing American imperialism, which left him increasingly isolated.
State politics (1867–1876)[edit]
Maine legislator (1867–1870)[edit]
After the war, Reed returned to Portland and was admitted to the Maine bar in October 1865. He opened a practice in Portland, taking petty civil and criminal cases.[9] In 1867, his colleague Nathan Webb secured Reed's nomination for the Maine House of Representatives; after some persuading, Reed agreed to run. In the heavily Republican city of Portland, he was easily elected; he was re-elected to a second term in 1868.[9]
Reed, one of the youngest members of the Maine House at the time, served on the joint legislative committee on the judiciary and drafted a bills for a general law of incorporation and the abolition of capital punishment in the state; both failed.[9] He distinguished himself for parliamentary skill in the 1869 U.S. Senate election between former Vice President Hannibal Hamlin and incumbent Senator Lot M. Morrill, whom Reed supported. In the Republican caucus to nominate a candidate, Reed moved to rule a blank ballot invalid, breaking a tie in favor of Morrill.[9] (Hamlin was later elected by a vote of the whole legislature.) Despite his youth, by March 1869 the Portland Press considered Reed "the actual though not the nominal leader of [the House]."[10]
In 1869, Reed was elected Senator for Cumberland County. He continued to serve on the joint committee on the judiciary and successfully led the fight to delay construction of the Portland and Rutland Railroad. He also paid homage to his former patron, Senator Fessenden, who died in 1869. Though Fessenden had become unpopular in the state owing to his vote against the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, Reed aggressively defended Fessenden's legacy and wartime service.[9]
Reed later reflected that his greatest achievement as a state legislator was securing the re-organization of the Cumberland County courts in an effort to reduce the time necessary to bring cases to a final judgment.[9]
Attorney General of Maine (1870–1873)[edit]
In January 1870, the Republican caucus nominated Reed for Attorney General, and he was elected easily.[11] As Attorney General, Reed significantly raised his profile. His first months in office were marked by the high-profile trial of a man charged with killing his wife's lover. Overcoming a "crime of passion" defense, Reed won a manslaughter verdict, though he had asked for a charge of murder. As a result, Reed advocated for the abolition of spousal privilege, which had excluded the only witness, the defendant's wife, from testifying. He also advocated separately as Attorney General for bail bond reform and an increase in the State's peremptory challenges in jury selection.[11] Most of Reed's suggestions did eventually become law, but were not adopted immediately, which he attributed to the fact that prosecutors were barred by virtue of their office from advising the legislature.[11]
He continued to oppose the railroad corporations, calling for an increase in the $5,000 cap on wrongful death claims and challenging the merger of the Portland and Kennebec with the Maine Central under a writ of quo warranto; his action was rendered moot when the legislature recognized the merger as valid.[11] In 1894, Reed spoke out in favor of consolidation and declared the writ was a mistake, arguing that the merger had "resulted in better stations, better trains, better transportation facilities of every kind."[12]
Reed served as Attorney General for the three years prescribed by tradition before leaving office in 1873.[9] He returned to a more lucrative private practice and served for three years as Portland city solicitor, representing the city in personal injury suits and routine business.[11]
Party leadership (1881–1889)[edit]
Judiciary chair (1881–1883)[edit]
After Reed's election to a third term, he was briefly considered to succeed Hannibal Hamlin in the United States Senate, but he publicly declined to be a candidate. He attributed his decision to the narrow Republican majority in the House and the possibility that his seat would flip.[18]
By the time the 47th United States Congress met on December 5, 1881, the new President James A. Garfield had been assassinated and Chester A. Arthur had succeeded him. With few tested leaders in the House, the Republican caucus turned to J. Warren Keifer as Speaker of the House after sixteen ballots; Reed finished third with eleven votes on the final ballot, behind Frank Hiscock.[19] In a concession to his opponents, Keifer named Hiscock and Reed to House leadership as chairs of the powerful committees on Appropriations and the Judiciary, respectively.[19] In a significant step, Reed also joined the Speaker and George Robeson on the powerful Committee on Rules after January 9, 1882, when Godlove Orth, another Keifer opponent who was left out of leadership, resigned in protest.[19]
In both roles, Reed defended the authority of the office of Speaker and majority rule. When Orth introduced a resolution to select committees and their chairs by an elective board of eleven members, Reed spoke out against it on the grounds that "the Speaker is not only under constant supervision of public opinion but also of the House." The resolution lost by a large nonpartisan majority.[19] During a May 1882 debate over a contested election in North Carolina, the parties came to a head over the minority's use of the filibuster. In response, Reed moved to amend the House Rules to bar any dilatory motion while a motion to adjourn was on the table.[20] After a week of efforts by the Democratic minority to delay this Rules amendment, Reed moved that the dilatory tactics were out of order and proposed that "no member or set of members have any right to use the rules which are to be changed to prevent the change which the House desires to make. ... There is no such thing as suicide in any provision of the Constitution of the United States."[21] After three hours of debate, Keifer upheld Reed on the point of order. Former Speaker Samuel J. Randall protested and appealed to the House, where the Speaker's decision was upheld by a majority vote.[20] According to De Alva S. Alexander, "[From] that hour Reed became the real leader of his party. Ever after, so long as he remained in Congress, his voice gave the word of command."[22]
Reed further expanded the principle of majority rule in debate over Tariff of 1883. As a protectionist, Reed supported higher tariffs on imports, but the House appeared unlikely to pass an independent tariff bill.[23] Instead, Reed presented a report from the Rules Committee to suspend the rules by majority vote and request a conference committee to consider the internal revenue bill, to which the Senate had attached tariff amendments. Reed's report passed the House, but only after the first vote failed to show a quorum. The report was highly controversial; Samuel S. Cox denounced it as "a fraud on parliamentary law," and Senators Thomas F. Bayard and James B. Beck refused to sit on the conference committee. The resulting bill itself, sometimes called the "mongrel tariff," was highly unpopular as well; Reed later wrote of his regret over the episode, claiming that none of the tariff commissioners' report had been enacted, "but all of its mistakes were."[23]
House Minority leadership (1883–89)[edit]
In 1882, the Democratic Party regained control of the House and John G. Carlisle of Kentucky was elected Speaker. Reed continued to seek reform of the House Rules from the minority by exploiting disagreements between Samuel J. Randall and William Ralls Morrison, two members of Democratic leadership who disagreed sharply over tariff policy.[24] Reed retained his seats on the Rules and Judiciary committees and gained a spot on the powerful Committee on Ways and Means.[24]
During his six years in the House minority, Reed also grew in party influence. Former Speaker Keifer, by virtue of seniority, retained leadership of the minority, but ultimately lost re-election to his House seat in 1884. When the next Congress met, Reed's name was placed in nomination by William McKinley for the party endorsement for Speaker; he defeated Frank Hiscock by 63 votes against 42 for the honor, thus formally sanctioning Reed as the party's floor leader.[25] Hiscock also left the House in 1887 when he was elected to the U.S. Senate, leaving Reed the undisputed leader of the party in the House, though McKinley, Nelson Dingley, and Joe Cannon were rising stars.[26]