Leadership Quote by Thomas Brackett Reed

“Has never yet been done” is the most flattering kind of argument: it lets you sound prudent while doing nothing. Reed is calling out that move for what it is - a superstition dressed up as institutional memory. The line is built on escalation. First, “stronger than reason,” then “stronger than discussion”: he’s not merely saying precedent can beat logic; he’s saying it can beat the democratic process itself. Once “we’ve never done that” enters the room, people stop thinking and start guarding the furniture.

The intent here is practical, not poetic. Reed was a hard-nosed congressional operator, famous for using procedure as a weapon (and for refusing to let it be used against governing). In the late-19th-century House, norms and customs weren’t just etiquette; they were veto points. Claiming something was unprecedented was a way to freeze change without admitting you were protecting power. Reed’s sentence exposes how that works: precedent becomes a moral shield, allowing opponents to avoid defending their position on the merits.

The subtext is a warning about status quo bias before we had a name for it. “Among men” hints at the self-importance of political institutions - as if history is a closed club whose past decisions determine what’s permissible. Reed insists that novelty isn’t evidence of danger; it’s often evidence that someone finally found the nerve (or the votes) to try. In a system that worships “tradition,” he argues, the hardest thing to defeat isn’t the opposition. It’s the idea that the past has veto power over the future.