Editing Thomas Brackett Reed (section)

==Party leadership (1881–1889)==
===Judiciary chair (1881–1883)===
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.{{sfn|Robinson|1930|p=77}}

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]].{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=79–84}} In a concession to his opponents, Keifer named Hiscock and Reed to House leadership as chairs of the powerful committees on [[United States House Committee on Appropriations|Appropriations]] and [[United States House Committee on the Judiciary|the Judiciary]], respectively.{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=79–84}} 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.{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=79–84}}

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.{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=79–84}} 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.{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=87–91}} 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."{{sfn|Robinson|1930|p=89}} 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.{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=87–91}} 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."{{sfn|Robinson|1930|p=91}}

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.{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=92–95}} 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."{{sfn|Robinson|1930|pp=92–95}}

=== House Minority leadership (1883–89) ===
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.{{Sfn|Robinson|1930|p=103}} Reed retained his seats on the Rules and Judiciary committees and gained a spot on the powerful Committee on Ways and Means.{{Sfn|Robinson|1930|p=103}}

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.{{Sfn|Robinson|1930|p=119}} 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 Jr.|Nelson Dingley]], and [[Joseph Gurney Cannon|Joe Cannon]] were rising stars.{{Sfn|Robinson|1930|p=103–05}}