Thomas Reynolds (1796–1844)

Elected in 1840, Thomas Reynolds became the seventh Missouri governor. There are few records to document his early life. He was born in Bracken County, Kentucky, on March 12, 1796. He appears to have been well educated and gained admission to the Kentucky bar. Around 1820 he married Eliza Ann Young. Probably within the next two years, the young couple moved to Springfield, Illinois, with their son, an only child.

Reynolds quickly won a place for himself in that growing frontier community. He practiced law and served in the Illinois General Assembly (including one term as Speaker of the House of Representatives), as the state’s attorney general, as judge of a circuit court, and finally as chief justice of the state supreme court. These public offices marked Reynolds as a man of ability, with prospects for a successful political career in Illinois. However, for reasons unknown, he moved to Missouri in 1829 and settled at Fayette in Howard County.

In his new home, Reynolds opened a law practice, entered into politics, and for a time edited the Boonslick Democrat. In politics he was an ardent Democrat and a loyal party man. He became one of the leaders of an influential and powerful group of central Missouri politicians known across the state as the Central Clique. Like Reynolds, members of the Central Clique were, for the most part, landowners and slaveholders with southern backgrounds. They supported Andrew Jackson nationally and idolized US senator from Missouri Thomas Hart Benton. Members of the Central Clique preached Benton’s hard-money doctrine and supported his attacks against corporations and paper-issuing banks.

With this power base, Reynolds won election to the state legislature as the representative from Howard County in 1832. That body promptly elected him Speaker of the House. After serving one term, he was appointed judge of the second judicial circuit. In 1840 the Central Clique dominated the Democratic Party’s state convention, and almost by acclamation that body nominated Reynolds as the party’s candidate for governor. He won the gubernatorial election by a substantial margin.

In his inaugural address Reynolds voiced the agrarian, states’ rights, and limited-government doctrines of the old-line Democrats. His was a clear stand against the emerging Whig Party with its platform calling for a national bank, paper currency, and internal improvements—a platform that appealed to the growing commercial and mercantile interests of the state and nation.

During the early 1840s, political controversy in Missouri became increasingly intense, bitter, and often personal. As governor, Reynolds generally continued to hold to the Benton, hard-money line, and some spokesmen with opposing views attacked him with passion and vindictiveness. During his term of office, Governor Reynolds became deeply depressed. On February 9, 1844, he shot and killed himself in his office in the executive mansion. He left a note stating that the “slanders and abuse” of his political enemies “has rendered my life a burden to me.”

Reynolds held a strong aversion to the long­-standing practice of sending debtors to prison. In large part because of his efforts, the General Assembly enacted a law in January 1843 abolishing imprisonment for debt. That principle has been retained in each successive state constitution.

Contemporaries described Reynolds as a man of considerable ability, with a clear mind and great powers of analysis. Demonstrating a sound knowledge of the law, he was recognized as an outstanding jurist. Despite the bitterness directed against him while governor, a friend recalled his genial habits, pleasant demeanor, integrity, and honesty of purpose. Perhaps because of these traits, the bitter barbs hurled at him compounded his depression. Reynolds was buried in Jefferson City.

This article was first published in Lawrence O. Christensen, William E. Foley, Gary R. Kremer, and Kenneth H. Winn, eds., Dictionary of Missouri Biography (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1999), and appears here by permission of the author and original publisher.