John Henninger Reagan

John Henninger Reagan (October 8, 1818 – March 6, 1905) was an American and Confederate politician from Texas. A Democrat, Reagan resigned from the U.S. House of Representatives when Texas seceded from the United States and joined the Confederate States of America. He served in the Confederate cabinet of Jefferson Davis as Postmaster General.

After the Confederate defeat in the Civil War and his release from prison after the war, Reagan called for cooperation by the Southern states with the U.S. government, an unpopular position among most conservative white people. He was elected to Congress in 1874

Reagan read the law, served as an apprentice in an established firm, and was licensed 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. 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 protections of slavery under the U.S. Constitution as extensions of private property rights, therefore he supported the United States, but when it became clear that Texas would secede, Reagan resigned from Congress on January 15, 1861, and returned home to the state to participate in the rebellion.

Reagan sent an agent to Washington, D.C., with letters asking the heads of the United States Post Office Department's various bureaus to work for him. Nearly all did so and brought copies of their records, contracts, account books, etc. "Reagan in effect had stolen the U.S. Post Office," historian William C. Davis later wrote.

Reagan cut expenses by eliminating costly and little-used routes and forcing railroads that carried the mail to reduce their rates. Despite the problems the war caused, his department managed to turn a profit, "the only post office department in American history to pay its own way," wrote William C. Davis. Reagan was the only member of the cabinet to oppose Robert E. Lee's offensive into Pennsylvania in June–July 1863. He instead supported a proposal to detach the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to reinforce Joseph E. Johnston in Mississippi, to break the Siege of Vicksburg. Historian Shelby Foote noted that, as the only Cabinet member from west of the Mississippi, Reagan was acutely aware of the critical consequences of Vicksburg's capture and control of the river by U.S. forces.

When Davis abandoned Richmond, Virginia on April 2, 1865, shortly before the entry of Army of the Potomac under George G. Meade, Reagan accompanied the president on his flight to the Carolinas. On April 27, Davis made him Secretary of the Treasury after George A. Trenholm's resignation. Reagan served in that capacity until he, Davis, and Texas governor Francis R. Lubbock were captured near Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10. In 2019, Reagan Early College High School in Austin was renamed as Northeast Early College High School. The John H. Reagan State Office Building on the Texas State Capitol grounds was named in his honor. Reagan was commemorated by a statue on the University of Texas at Austin campus. On August 21, 2017, Reagan's statue in Austin was removed. Plans were announced to add it to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History. A park in his hometown of Palestine, Texas, was named for him. A statue of Reagan was installed on the grounds.