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.

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.

[4] The faculty consisted of ten men, led by president Leonard Woods and including Charles Carroll Everett, Thomas C. Upham, Alpheus Packard, and William Smyth.

[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] 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.

[13] 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.

[15] Reed defended the legitimacy of Hayes's victory in the state of Louisiana, in particular focusing on East Feliciana Parish, where he alleged that a violent wave of crime (including murder) had been for the purpose of political intimidation, as it had ended suddenly on election day and the victims had been primarily Republicans.

[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.

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 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.

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.

[27] Following the election, the Washington Post reported that the "speakership question was regarded on all sides as being settled" in favor of Reed, though his leading rival, McKinley, was personally very popular.

[34] The conflict over parliamentary procedure lasted three days, with Democrats delaying consideration of the bill by introducing points of order to challenge the maneuver and then appealing Reed's rulings to the floor.

"[37] Though repealed and replaced by the next Congress, it gained greater support after the Panic of 1893 and made McKinley a serious national political figure; he would go on to win the White House in 1896 as the premier champion of industrial protection.

"[39] Though Reed was a firm supporter of "sound money," which tended to favor the more stable gold standard, a majority in both chambers of Congress had some level of sympathy for the free silver movement.

On January 20, 1890, Edwin H. Conger (chair of Coinage, Weights and Measures) introduced a bill authorizing the Treasury to issue notes in exchange for silver bullion at market price.

In 1889 and 1890, Republicans undertook one last stand in favor of federal enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment to protect the voting rights of blacks in the Solid South, and Reed took a special interest in the project.

"[42] The Lodge Bill was the last serious effort in Congress to enforce the terms of the Fifteenth Amendment until the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and its defeat is sometimes marked as the beginning of the decline in American race relations.

"[44] Anticipating a further disaster in the 1892 elections, Reed privately opposed the nomination of President Harrison for a second term, and his own name gained some traction in the press as a potential compromise candidate.

Reed gave the closing argument for repeal on August 26, 1893, arguing that the regular schedule of redemptions had drained the nation's currency reserves and undermined confidence in the financial system.

The remainder of the term was marked by infighting among the majority, which had become hopelessly divided over the currency issue; meanwhile, the Republican minority remained loyally unified behind Reed, delivering him opportunities to undermine Speaker Charles Frederick Crisp.

He had the vigorous support of Henry Cabot Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt, and party bosses including Joseph H. Manley, Matt Quay, J. Donald Cameron, and Thomas C. Platt were reported to be sympathetic.

When New Hampshire senator William E. Chandler accused Hanna of effectively taking bribes from mercantile interests in exchange for promises of a new protective tariff, the backlash permanently damaged the struggling Reed campaign.

[47] In addition to the vigorous campaign by Hanna and Chandler's gaffe, Reed's ultimate failure to secure the nomination has been attributed to his refusal to make pledges or commitments in exchange for political or financial support.

Reed supporters at the convention, led by Lodge, did succeed in including a gold standard plank in the party platform, abandoning their prior proposal for bimetallism by international agreement.

He added that there was no serious threat of attack from Spain or Cuba and, while he supported naval power as a form of insurance, over-insurance was "costly and makes a moral hazard and danger of a conflagration which might burn what we have not protected.

[49] Reed was re-elected in 1898 and retained the Speaker's gavel but became increasingly isolated during the debate over the ratification of the Treaty of Paris and imperial expansion, especially after the loss of three key allies: Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge were ardent expansionists, and Nelson Dingley died on January 13, 1899.

After meeting with President McKinley on Jekyll Island in the spring, Reed finally announced on April 19 that he would retire from public life and become senior partner in the firm of Simpson, Thatcher and Barnum.

"[55] The House thus adopted a resolution honoring Reed as "a distinguished statesman, a lofty patriot, a cultured scholar, an incisive writer, a unique orator, an unmatched debater, a master of logic, wit, satire, the most famous of the world's parliamentarians, the great and representative citizen of the American Republic.

[62] The most recent scholarly biography is Thomas Brackett Reed: The Gilded Age Speaker Who Made the Rules for American Politics by Robert J. Klotz (University Press of Kansas, 2022).