Leonidas Campbell Houk | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromTennessee's2nd district | |
| In office March 4, 1879 – May 25, 1891 | |
| Preceded by | Jacob Montgomery Thornburgh |
| Succeeded by | John C. Houk |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1836-06-08)June 8, 1836 |
| Died | May 25, 1891(1891-05-25) (aged 54)[1] |
| Resting place | Old Gray Cemetery Knoxville, Tennessee |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Smith Mary Belle Von Rosen[1] |
| Profession | Politician,Lawyer |
Leonidas Campbell Houk (June 8, 1836 – May 25, 1891) was a lawyer who served in theUnited States House of Representatives for the2nd congressional district ofTennessee. Between 1878 and 1891, Houk was elected to seven consecutive terms in the House, during which time he helped solidify theRepublican congressional dominance inEast Tennessee that remains to the present day.[2] Houk fought for the Union Army during theCivil War, and rose to the rank of colonel within a few months.[3] Largely self-trained as a lawyer, Houk served as a state circuit court judge from 1866 to 1869.[1]
Houk was born nearBoyds Creek, Tennessee inSevier County on June 8, 1836. He lost his father at a young age, and grew up in poverty.[3] Although he attended local schools for less than three months, he managed to educate himself by reading books.[4] He eventually learned the trade of cabinet-making, and worked in this trade for several years inClinton, Tennessee.[3]
In 1853, Houk was charged inMaryville with shooting a gun near a public road.[3] At his trial,Knoxville lawyerOliver Perry Temple (1820–1907), who happened to be in the courtroom, arose and spoke on Houk's behalf, and convinced the judge to grant Houk leniency. As a result of this incident, Houk became interested in law, and began making regular stops by Temple'sGay Street office to borrow books on law and legal theory.[3] In 1859, Houk was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Clinton.[1]
Like most rural East Tennesseans, Houk supported the Union during the Civil War.[3] In 1861, Houk engaged prominent secessionistHenry S. Foote in a debate in Clinton, and in June of that year he representedAnderson County at theEast Tennessee Convention, which sought to create a separate, Union-aligned state in East Tennessee.[3] In August 1861, Houk travelled toKentucky, where he enlisted in the Union Army as a private.[5]
On February 5, 1862, Houk was named colonel of the Third Tennessee Volunteer Infantry. In August of that year, Houk's regiment was vastly outnumbered and nearly surrounded by Confederate forces atLondon, Kentucky. Rather than surrender, Houk led his men on a brutal retreat over back roads and mountain passes to safety.[5] As a result of this retreat, his health deteriorated, and he was forced to retire from the army on April 23, 1863.[5] He spent the remainder of the war writing articles in support of the Union.[4] He defended theEmancipation Proclamation,[5] and served as a presidential elector for the Republican ticket in 1864.[1]
Houk first ran for the 2nd District's congressional seat in 1865, but lost toHorace Maynard.[5] In March 1866, however, he was elected circuit court judge of Tennessee's 17th judicial district. At first, Houk supported the policies ofRadical Republican governorWilliam G. Brownlow, including a bill that disfranchised former Confederate officers, and a bill giving African-Americans in the state the right to vote.[5] However, after a particularly bitter defeat against Maynard (a Brownlow ally) for the Republican nomination during the congressional election of 1868, Houk began distancing himself from the Brownlow regime.[5]
Houk resigned from the bench in 1869 and moved to Knoxville, where he formed a successful law firm withHenry R. Gibson.[3] In 1872, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature, but served just one term. He again sought his party's nomination for Congress in 1874 againstJacob Thornburgh (Maynard had beengerrymandered out of the district in 1872), but withdrew after another particularly divisive campaign.[5]
A member of theStalwart faction in the House, Houk supported Grant in his run for a third non-consecutive presidential term in1880 election.[4] He also expressed sympathy for the struggles of poor farmers, reflecting apopulist bent in his district due to the mountainous geographic nature stifling development and thus contributing to poverty.
Largely focusing on local as opposed to national issues, Houk emphasized constituents services and provided aid to veterans.[6] He managed to consolidate political power within the state GOP, subsequently gaining control ofpatronage. This ultimately led to an alliance with someDemocrats in the state, which elicited substantial criticisms.[6]
After Thornburgh retired in 1878, Houk finally gained the Republican nomination for Congress, narrowly defeatingKnoxville Chronicle editorWilliam Rule, and was elected to theForty-sixth Congress later that year.[5] Sensing that East Tennesseans were weary of national issues, Houk focused on local concerns, namely veterans' issues and the demand for federal government seed. He was chairman of the House Committee on War Claims during theForty-seventh congress,[7] and went to great lengths to get compensation for East Tennessee Unionists who suffered property damage during the war.[5]
In 1881, Houk thwarted Rule's attempt to become Knoxville's postmaster, and instead helped his old mentor Oliver P. Temple get the appointment.[5] An enraged Rule ran against Houk for the Republican nomination, and after a hostile campaign, both claimed the nomination and ran against one another in the general election. Houk won handily, and afterward ran virtually unopposed for four subsequent terms.[5] During this period, he went to considerable lengths to broaden the party's reach beyond its radical roots. With Brownlow and the party's older leaders dead or retired, Houk became the leader of Tennessee's Republicans, and thus controlled the party's presidential patronage.[5][8]
Like nearly all Stalwarts, Houk ultimately caved into supportingcivil service reform as a means of compromise in the 1880s, voting for thePendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883 which ended the traditionalspoils system Republicans utilized in the post-warReconstruction period.[9]
By the late-1880s, Houk had formed an unspoken alliance with the state's Democrats (who now dominated state politics) in which he traded federal influence during Republican presidencies for a say in state affairs.[8] In 1888, however,Henry Clay Evans, who disliked what he perceived as Houk's subservience to state Democrats, captured the 3rd District's House seat, and immediately began fighting with Houk over distribution of patronage.[8] Although the 3rd District was gerrymandered to ensure Evans's defeat in 1890, he and Houk continued bickering over patronage and political appointments, and after Houk's death, his son,John C. Houk, struggled with Evans for several years for control of the state Republican Party.[5][8]
On May 24, 1891, Houk accidentally drank a bottle of arsenic solution at DePue's drug store in Knoxville, which he mistook for a glass of ice water, and died in pain the following day.[6][10][11] He wasinterred inOld Gray Cemetery. Houk's son, John Chiles Houk, succeeded him as the 2nd District's congressman. The younger Houk held the seat until 1895, and continued to play a role in East Tennessee politics into the 20th century.[8]
Houk's broadening of the Republican platform solidified Republican control of East Tennessee's 1st and 2nd congressional districts.[2] As of 2022, no Democrat has been elected to Congress in either district since Houk's day.
| U.S. House of Representatives | ||
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| Preceded by | Member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromTennessee's 2nd congressional district March 4, 1879 – May 25, 1891 | Succeeded by |
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