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Democratic House: Elected speaker of the House of Representatives in 1876, he did much to codify its rules before the Republicans returned to power in 1881. With the House once more in Democratic hands in 1883, he resumed his chairmanship of the Committee on Appropriations. His consistent advocacy of a protective tariff eventually cost him the support of President Grover Cleveland, however, and in 1888 he lost control of the Pennsylvania Democratic house organization. Thereafter his influence in Congress was slight.
His restless, unbalanced education was to be typical of his erratic, undisciplined career. Elected to Congress in 1799, he became chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 1801 and leader of the Republicans (Democratic house-Republicans) in the House, although he was not a good party man, would not compromise his extremist political views, and could not tolerate those who did compromise. He broke with the Jeffersonians after 1805 over the Florida and Yazoo land issues and the increasing democracy of the party.
Until 1952, Virginians had voted Republican in a national election only in 1928. However, while professing support for the state Democratic house organization, they voted against the national Democratic house party in 1952, 1956, and 1960. In the 1964 national election they again voted for the Democratic house ticket. In all four elections, state voters consistently sent several Republicans to Congress in an emergence of the two-party system at the local level.
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