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. Reed had greater influence over the agenda and operations of the House than any prior Speaker, leading to him being referred to as "Czar" Reed by opponents. His first term was marked by a dramatic expansion of the office'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"Thomas B. Reed (ME). "House of Representatives, Thursday, April 22, 1880." Congressional Record 10 (1880) p. 2661. (Text from: Congressional Record Permanent Digital Collection); Accessed: May 9, 2020. 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. 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.
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.
In 1896, he ran for president on a hard currency platform but lost the Republican nomination to William McKinley. He voted in favor of the Spanish–American War, but while serving as Speaker in 1899, Reed resigned from the House in opposition to growing American imperialism, which left him politically isolated following the American victory over Spain and the passage of the Newlands Resolution.
Early life and education
Thomas Brackett Reed was born on October 18, 1839, in a small two-story tenement on Hancock Street in Portland, Maine. His parents, Matilda Prince (née Mitchell) and Thomas Brackett Reed Sr., were natives of Maine who traced their American ancestry to the Arbella and Mayflower, respectively. The Reed family were not wealthy; Thomas Sr. was captain of a fishing boat before becoming a watchman in a Portland sugar warehouse.
Reed attended public schools, including the Portland Boys' School, and was an avid student and reader. He showed interest in public affairs from an early age, attending Neal Dow's trial for involvement in the Portland Rum Riot in 1855. He was also an avid member of the Congregational Church as a young man. Members of his congregation raised funds to provide him a college education with intent that he become a minister, but he left the church and returned the donations.
Bowdoin College (1856–1860) After graduating high school, Reed entered Bowdoin College in 1856 and undertook a mandatory course centered on Christian theology, Latin, Greek, and mathematics. Bowdoin was noted for its required courses in English composition and oratory and had already produced Nathaniel Hawthorne, President of the United States Franklin Pierce, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The faculty consisted of ten men, led by president Leonard Woods and including Charles Carroll Everett, Thomas C. Upham, Alpheus Packard, and William Smyth. Reed's professor of rhetoric and oratory, Joshua Chamberlain, later distinguished himself at the Battle of Gettysburg and served as Governor of Maine during Reed's term in the state legislature.
At Bowdoin, Reed gained a personal reputation for his ability to recite Joseph Butler's Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed from memory. He was a member of the rowing crew, chess club, Psi Upsilon fraternity, and an editor of the annual yearbook. He debated as a member of the Peucinian Society and was an avid reader of Carlyle, Goethe, Thackeray, Macaulay, and Charles Reade, among other less popular authors.
Reed kept a small, close group of friends, including Samuel Fessenden, the son of U.S. Senator William Pitt Fessenden, who provided Reed a loan to complete his education. Samuel Fessenden was an avid abolitionist who participated in the civil conflict in Kansas and, one year after graduation, died at the Second Battle of Bull Run. His death had a profound impact on Reed, who memorialized Fessenden as "the quiet associate of the studious hours ... sublimated in the crucible of death from all imperfections, clothed upon with all his virtues and radiant with all the possibilities of a generous youth."
Legal and U.S. Navy career (1860–1865) As a senior, Reed reversed a previously mediocre academic record to lead his class; he finished fifth in the graduating class of 1860 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Abandoning any interest in ministry, he spent the next years doing odd jobs and studying law. He taught school in Portland for a year before moving to California in 1861. He was admitted to the bar in San Jose on September 8, 1863, after an examination by eminent California attorney William T. Wallace. While in San Jose, he delivered pro-Union speeches and signed a letter from sixteen members of the bar endorsing judge Samuel Bell McKee for re-election to the bench, citing McKee's determination to "uphold the Administration in its present efforts to suppress the rebellion and sustain the Constitution and laws of the United States." However, he soon returned to Portland, deciding "nature never intended any man to live [in California], only to dig gold and get himself out of it, and to shudder in dreams ever afterwards."
On his return to Maine, Reed joined the law offices of Howard and Strout as a clerk. He joined the United States Navy in April 1864, winning an appointment as acting assistant paymaster on the recommendation of Senator Fessenden. He served in that role, primarily on the gunboat USS Sibyl on the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers, until honorably discharged in late 1865. When a Reed supporter later pointed out his opponents boasted of their war records, he retorted, "Tell them I kept a grocery on a gunboat down in Louisiana in wartime."
After the war, he was elected as a companion of the Maine Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States.
State politics (1867–1876) Maine legislator (1867–1870) 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. 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.
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. 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. (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]."
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.
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.
Attorney General of Maine (1870–1873) In January 1870, the Republican caucus nominated Reed for Attorney General, and he was elected easily. 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. 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.
He continued to oppose the railroad corporations, calling for an increase in the $5,000 cap ($ in ) 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. 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."
Reed served as Attorney General for the three years prescribed by tradition before leaving office in 1873. 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.
Early United States House career (1877–1881)
1876 election Reed was nominated for Congress from Maine's first district in 1876. Incumbent Representative John H. Burleigh had split from the state party organization, led by Senators James G. Blaine and Hannibal Hamlin, and Reed, a respected organization man, was chosen to oppose him. Reed's strength was in the city of Portland, while most of Burleigh's support was from York County. Reed narrowly carried the district convention on June 29. The conflict between Reed and Burleigh carried into the general election, with a Burleigh ticket in the campaign. Reed campaigned in favor of prohibition and was attacked for his association with Robert G. Ingersoll, known for his radical advocacy for agnosticism. Reed was forced to deny that he was an atheist, but the charge would be repeated in later campaigns. Ultimately, Reed narrowly won by fewer than 1,000 votes on September 9, with Burleigh receiving 177.
Early congressional service and rise Reed was relatively active in debate during his first term, speaking against Fernando Wood in support of funding for the United States diplomatic corps and delivering his most famous early speech against the federal restoration of the campus of William & Mary College, which was destroyed during the war. Arguing that the expenditure would set a precedent which would allow "every claim agent who loved the Lost Cause and a good many who did not" to raid the Treasury, Reed argued, "You were beaten and yet you want us to take the consequences. You come forward and insist that the victorious country shall pay for the damages inflicted upon it by its enemies."