John Henninger Reagan (October 8, 1818March 6, 1905) was an American politician from Texas. A Democrat, Reagan resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives when Texas seceded from the Union and joined the Confederate States of America. He served in the cabinet of Jefferson Davis as Postmaster General. After the Confederate defeat and his release from prison after the war, Reagan called for cooperation by the South with the federal government, an unpopular position among most conservative whites. He was elected to Congress in 1874, after his predictions of harsh treatment for resistance to the Reconstruction era were proved correct. He was elected in 1886 by the state legislature as a Democrat from Texas to the US Senate, where he served one term from 1887 to 1891. He resigned from the seat when appointed by the governor as chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission. He was among the founders of the Texas State Historical Association. Early life John Henninger Reagan was born in 1818 in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, to Timothy Richard and Elizabeth (Lusk) Reagan. His parents were primarily of Irish and English/Scots border descent; his middle name was for German ancestors. He left Tennessee at age nineteen and traveled to Texas, which had become independent from Mexico the year before in 1836. Reagan worked as a surveyor from 1839 to 1843. He bought property and farmed in Kaufman County until 1851. During the time he worked as a surveyor, he also served as a private tutor to the children of John Marie Durst. Reagan read the law, serving as an apprentice in an established firm, and was given a license to practice in 1846. He opened an office in Buffalo and the same year was elected a probate judge in Henderson County. In 1847 he was elected to the Texas House of Representatives, but was defeated for a second term in 1849. He was admitted to the bar in 1848 and practiced in both Buffalo and Palestine, Texas. Reagan was elected as a district judge in Palestine, serving from 1852 to 1857. His efforts to defeat the American Party (Know-Nothings) resulted in his election to Congress as a Democrat in 1857 from Texas's 1st congressional district. Reagan was a staunch supporter of slavery. He believed abolition would cause such social problems as to require Southern whites "exterminate the greater portion of the [black] race." He also believed in the federal