Rice Alexander Pierce

American lawyer and politician

Rice Alexander Pierce (July 3, 1848 – July 12, 1936) was an American politician and a member of the United States House of Representatives for the 9th congressional district of Tennessee.

Pierce was born on July 3, 1848, in Dresden, Tennessee, in Weakley County. He attended the common schools in Tennessee, and during the Civil War he served in the Confederate States Army with the Eighth Tennessee Cavalry. After the war, he attended school in London, Ontario, Canada and studied law in Halifax, North Carolina. He was admitted to the bar of the supreme court in Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1868.

In 1869, Pierce commenced practice in Union City, Tennessee, in Obion County. He served as mayor in 1872. He was elected the district attorney general of the twelfth judicial circuit in 1874. He was re elected in 1878 and served until 1883. Elected as a Democrat to the Forty eighth Congress, Pierce served from March 4, 1883, to March 3, 1885. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1884, but was elected to the Fifty first and Fifty second Congresses, and served from March 4, 1889, to March 3, 1893. Again unsuccessful in 1892 to the Fifty third Congress, he was elected to the Fifty fifth and to the three succeeding Congresses. He served from March 4, 1897, to March 3, 1905. When Pierce was an unsuccessful candidate for re election to the Fifty ninth Congress in 1904, he resumed the practice of law in Union City, Tennessee. He was chairman of the state Democratic State campaign committee in 1929.

Pierce died in Union City, Tennessee, on July 12, 1936 (age 88 years, 9 days). He was interred in the City Cemetery.