Interstate Commerce Act

About the Author

The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 was an act of Congress and, as such, does not have a specific author. Two men, however, played a major role in its creation: John H. Reagan and Shelby M. Cullom.

Born on October 8, 1818, in Sevierville, Tennessee, John Henninger Reagan moved to Texas in 1839. Trained as a surveyor, he later began to practice law. He was a member of the state house of representatives from 1847 to 1849. In 1852 he became a district judge of Navarro County. Involved in Democratic Party politics in Texas throughout the 1850s, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Eastern District of Texas in 1857. On January 15, 1861, Reagan resigned from his seat in Congress. When the Civil War broke out, he served as the Confederate postmaster general. He was captured on May 9, 1865, and sent to Fort Warren in Boston harbor.

After the war, Reagan was a member of the Texas state constitutional convention in 1875. Reagan served as a U.S. congressman from March 4, 1875, to March 4, 1887, when he became a U.S. senator until his resignation on June 10, 1891. As a congressman, he introduced the Reagan Bill, legislation that attempted to regulate the railroad industry by outlawing rebates and discrimination, to regulate short-and long-haul commerce, and to outlaw railroad pooling. Some of the proposals in the bill were incorporated into the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. In 1887, Reagan was chairman of the Committee on Commerce, and after his resignation from the Senate he was appointed as a member of the railroad commission in Texas. He died in Palestine, Texas, on March 6, 1905.

Shelby Moore Cullom was born in Wayne County, Kentucky, on November 22, 1829. In 1837 he moved to Tazewell County, Illinois, and later made his home in Springfield. He was admitted to the bar in 1855 and was elected city attorney in Springfield that year. He served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives in 1856 and again from 1860 to 1861. He was elected as a Republican to the U.S. Congress and served from March 4, 1865, to March 3, 1871. He was again elected as a member of the state house of representatives from 1873 to 1874. He served as governor of Illinois from 1877 to 1883. He resigned his post as governor to be a U.S. senator from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1913. In the Senate he wrote and sponsored the Cullom Bill, first passed in 1885, which attempted to regulate interstate commerce and the railroad.

Cullom chaired the Select Committee to Investigate Interstate Commerce, also known as the Cullom Committee, which was established on March 17, 1885, to investigate complaints against and abuses by the railroad and water routes traveling across state lines. One of the provisions in the Cullom Bill called for the establishment of an Interstate Commerce Commission. Several of his proposals from this bill were incorporated into the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. While in the Senate, he also served on the Committee on Expenditures of Public Money, the Committee on Interstate Commerce, and the Committee on Foreign Relations; he was the Republican Conference chairman and regent of the Smithsonian Institution. Cullom also served as chairman of the Lincoln Memorial Commission. He died on January 28, 1914.