He was born in Guilford, Guilford County, North Carolina, moved with his parents to Bloomingdale, Indiana, in 1840; completed preparatory studies; studied law at the Cincinnati Law School; was admitted to the bar in 1858 and commenced practice in Terre Haute, Indiana, in 1858; moved to Tuscola, Illinois, in 1859; State's attorney for the twenty-seventh judicial district of Illinois from March 1861 to December 1868; elected as a Republican to the Forty-third and to the eight succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1873-March 3, 1891); chairman, Committee on Expenditures in the Post Office Department (Forty-seventh Congress), Committee on Appropriations (Fifty-first Congress); moved to Danville, Illinois, in 1878; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1890 to the Fifty-second Congress; elected to the Fifty-third and to the nine succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1893-March 3, 1913); chairman, Committee on Appropriations (Fifty-fourth through Fifty-seventh Congresses), Committee on Rules (Fifty-eighth through Sixty-first Congresses); Speaker of the House of Representatives (Fifty-eighth through Sixty-first Congresses); received fifty-eight votes for the presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention at Chicago in 1908; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1912 to the Sixty-third Congress; again elected to the Sixty-fourth and to the three succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1915-March 3, 1923); declined renomination for Congress at the end of the Sixty-seventh Congress; retired from public life; died in Danville, Vermilion County, Illinois, Illinois; interment in Spring Hill Cemetery.
source: www.house.gov
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