Abraham Lincoln once opined, with tongue mostly in cheek, that history sometimes does repeat itself."What has once happened," he remarked in an 1839 speech, "will invariably happen again, when the same circumstances which combined to produce it, shall again combine in the same way."

Notwithstanding the clear implication of Lincoln's observation that history is not recyclable, amateur historians and prognosticators have not been reluctant to draw all manner of parallels between the past and present. Let the mathematicians fret that such parallels are not equidistant at every point. For junior historians, at least, it's a clever way to remain both relevant and entertaining while still imparting a little historical knowledge in the process.

Of course, the careful, professional historian would not deign to suggest that history actually repeats itself, though he might be willing to concede that it often plays similar tricks on mankind. That is why those history essay questions we got in school always began: "Compare and contrast the following two historical periods [or civilizations]: . . . . "

However, not being a professional historian with a reputation to maintain, I have decided to let history be my guide in speculating about how Congress might be following the patterns of an earlier era. I take as my inspiration Karl Rove, Governor George W. Bush's top political adviser, who has frequently drawn parallels between the 1896 and 2000 presidential elections as pointing to a Republican realignment. If he can do that, I figured, why can't I draw similar analogies between the congresses of those same two periods? After all, there are already plenty of similarities to draw upon.

For one thing, after being out of power for a while, Republicans retook control of the Congress in 1894, just as they did in 1994. Of course, in the earlier instance they had only been in the minority for four years, while in the latter it was 40 years. The Republican who was elected Speaker in 1895 was a powerful and portly figure, Thomas Brackett Reed of Maine, who is considered one of the greatest House leaders ever. Shortly after he was first elected Speaker in 1889, Reed issued several rulings from the chair that eliminated various obstructionist tactics employed by the minority. As chairman of the Rules Committee, he not only incorporated these "Reed rules" into the standing rules of the House, but adroitly used the committee to control the flow of legislation on the House floor.

Reed's reign inaugurated a new era of party responsibility and accountability in the House. However, accountability being a two-edged sword of credit and blame, the people held Reed's Republicans accountable in the elections of 1890 by returning them to minority status. Still, Reed remained the minority leader and was again elected Speaker when Republicans recaptured the House in the 1894 elections.

Republican Newt Gingrich of Georgia, elected Speaker in 1995, has often been compared to Thomas Reed because of his belief in party government under a strong Speaker who appoints the members and chairmen of committees and uses the Rules Committee to control the legislative process on the floor. Besides being big men both in power and girth, Reed and Gingrich had something else in common: both stepped down as Speaker after two consecutive terms and retired from the House after being reelected by their constituents in 1898 and 1998, respectively. Reed resigned because he was out of step with his party in the House and with President William McKinley over the war with Spain. Gingrich, on the other hand, resigned under the threat of defeat by his own hand-picked Appropriations Committee chairman, Bob Livingston of Louisiana, and the prospect that he would no longer be able to lead his fractious troops even if he were reelected Speaker. Shortly thereafter, Livingston, who had just received the nomination for Speaker from his party, retired from the House under the cloud of personal scandal.

Succeeding Reed and Gingrich as House Speaker were two mild-mannered midwesterners with the initials DH: David Henderson of Iowa, a civil war veteran who had lost one of his legs in battle; and Dennis Hastert of Illinois, a former teacher and wrestling coach, who had risen to become House deputy whip. Henderson served two terms as Speaker before retiring from the House in 1903 after 20 years of service in Congress. Hastert, a 14-year House veteran, has just completed his first term as Speaker.

Henderson was succeeded as Speaker by "Uncle Joe" Cannon of Illinois, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, who had lost races for the speakership on three previous occasions - twice to Reed and once to Henderson. Cannon, an iron-fisted party disciplinarian in the Reed mold, is most known for the 1910 revolt against him. Minority party Democrats joined with a group of progressive Republicans to change House rules and strip the Speaker of his chairmanship of, membership on, and power to appoint, the Rules Committee. Republicans lost control of the House at the polls that same year. Two years later a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, was elected president, still running in part against "Cannonism."

Given the historical similarities already noted in Congress during these two turn-of-the-century periods, one is left to wonder what other occurrences of a century ago might repeat themselves over the next few decades. Will the next 16 years be dominated by consecutive Republican presidencies? Will Dennis Hastert retire after one more term as Speaker? Will he be replaced by a stronger Republican Speaker? If so, will that stronger Speaker eventually face a revolt from within his own ranks in 2010 that will diminish the powers of the speakership? Will his party face defeat at the polls that same year, turning control of Congress back to the Democrats for the next eight years? And, will a Democrat be elected President two years later, in 2012, and hold onto the White House for two terms before Republicans regain it for 12 years? If the answer turns out to be"yes" to most of the above questions, then we can safely conclude that history sometimes does repeat itself - at least when "the same circumstances . . . combine in the same way."

Don Wolfensberger is director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, author of Congress and the People: Deliberative Democracy on Trial (Johns Hopkins University press, 2000), and former chief-of-staff of the House Rules Committee. His email address is WolfensD@wwic.si.edu.