Galusha A. Grow - U.S. House

U.S. House

Grow ran as a Democrat in the 1850 elections, and served as a member of that party during the 32nd and 33rd Congresses, and part of the 34th Congress. He switched parties in the wake of President Pierce's signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

He ran as a Republican for the 1856 elections, and remained a member of that party for the rest of his political career.

During the 35th United States Congress, on February 5, 1858, he was physically attacked by Democrat Laurence M. Keitt in the House chambers, leading to a brawl between northerners and southerners.

He was re-elected during the 1858 elections and before the end of the 36th Congress South Carolina had voted to secede from the Union.

After Grow was again re-elected, the recently-elected President Abraham Lincoln called the 37th Congress into session on July 4; in a chamber down by almost 60 from the 237 present in the previous session, Grow was nominated by Thaddeus Stevens to be the Speaker of the House, winning the job with little fanfare over the only other nominee, Francis Preston Blair, Jr..

Although events of the Civil War dominated, and the First Battle of Bull Run occurred only two weeks after the 37th Congress was called into session, under Grow's speakership, several other major acts of Congress were passed and signed into law, particularly the Morrill Land Grant College Act (passed House June 17, 1862), Pacific Railway Act authorizing land grants to encourage the construction of the transcontinental railroad, and the Homestead Act, which in over a century resulted in the establishment of 1.6 million homesteads.

Grow, a supporter of the Radical Republicans, was defeated in his re-election bid in 1862.