David Bremner Henderson (March 14, 1840 – February 25, 1906) was an American attorney, Civil War veteran and Republican Party politician who served as the 34th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from 1899 to 1903.

He was severely wounded and lost a leg, but he returned to active service and accepted a colonelcy even before fully recovering.

He enlisted in the Union Army on September 15, 1861, as a private in Company C, 12th Iowa Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

[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.

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.

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.

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.

[7] His secret for political success came from combining mainstream Republican causes with those dear to the hearts of his farmland constituency.

(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).

[9] During his two terms as speaker (in the 56th and 57th congresses), Henderson, by longstanding tradition also held the role as chairman of the Committee on Rules.

Henderson's letter announcing his decision referred to "a growing sentiment, among Republicans, that I do not truly represent their views on the tariff question.

they relate not alone to poker playing, but to his alleged intimacy with a certain 'lobbyess' who is reported to have some written evidence that would greatly embarrass the Speaker.

After leaving Congress, Henderson practiced law in New York City until health problems caused him to retire to Southern California.

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.

David Bremner Henderson Papers's are housed at University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections & Archives