John Henninger Reagan (8 October 1818-6 March 1905) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-TX 1) from 4 March 1857 to 3 March 1861 (succeeding Lemuel Evans and preceding George Whitmore) and from 4 March 1875 to 3 March 1883 (succeeding William S. Herndon and preceding Charles Stewart) and from TX-2 from 4 March 1883 to 3 March 1887 (succeeding David B. Culberson and preceding William Harrison Martin), and a US Senator from Texas from 4 March 1887 to 10 June 1891 (succeeding Samuel B. Maxey and preceding Horace Chilton).
Biography[]
John Henninger Reagan was born in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in 1818, and he settled in the Republic of Texas in 1836 before working as a surveyor and a farmer in Kaufman County. He served as a Henderson County probate judge, served in the State House from 1847 to 1849, became a lawyer in Buffalo and Palestine, and served as a staunch Southern Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from 1857 to 1861, claiming that the abolition of slavery would force whites to "exterminate" African-Americans. He served as the Confederacy's Postmaster General from 1861 to 1865, and he was imprisoned for 22 weeks following the end of the American Civil War. During Reconstruction, he led the successful efforts to remove the Republican Edmund J. Davis from the governorship after Davis lost the election, and he went on to return to the US Congress from 1875 to 1887 as a representative and as a US Senator from 1887 to 1891. He advocated for the federal regulation of railroads and helped create the Interstate Commerce Commission, and he resigned to chair the Railroad Commission of Texas from 1891 to 1903. He died in 1905.