The 1858–59 United States House of Representatives elections were held on various dates in various states between June 7, 1858, and December 1, 1859. Each state set its own date for its elections to the House of Representatives. 238 representatives were elected in the new state of Oregon, the pending new state of Kansas, and the other 32 states before the first session of the 36th United States Congress convened on December 5, 1859. They were held during President James Buchanan's term.
Winning a plurality for the first time, the Republicans benefited from multiple factors. These factors included the collapse of the nativist American Party, sectional strife in the Democratic Party, Northern voter dissatisfaction with the Supreme Court's March 1857 Dred Scott decision, political exposure of Democrats to chaotic violence in Kansas amid repeated attempts to impose slavery against the express will of a majority of its settlers, and a sharp decline in President Buchanan's popularity due to his perceived fecklessness. In Pennsylvania, his home state, Republicans made particularly large gains.
The pivotal Dred Scott decision was only the second time the Supreme Court had overturned an Act of Congress on Constitutional grounds, after Marbury v. Madison. The decision created apprehension in the Northern United States, where slavery had ceased to exist, that the Supreme Court would strike down any limitations on slavery anywhere in the United States with a ruling in Lemmon v. New York.
Short of a majority, Republicans controlled the House with limited cooperation from smaller parties also opposing the Democrats. Republicans were united in opposing slavery in the territories and fugitive slave laws, while rejecting the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise, key aspects of the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas–Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision. Though not yet abolitionist, Republicans openly derived a primary partisan purpose from hostility to slavery while furnishing a mainstream platform for abolitionism. None of the party's views or positions was new. However, their catalytic cohesion into a unified political vehicle, and the bold dismissal of the South, represented a newly disruptive political force.
Democrats remained divided and politically trapped. Fifteen Democratic members publicly defied their party label. Of seven Independent Democrats, six represented Southern districts. Eight Northern anti-Lecompton Democrats favored a ban on slavery in Kansas, effectively upholding the Missouri Compromise their party had destroyed several years earlier. Democrats lacked credible leadership and continued to drift in a direction favorable to the interests of slavery despite obviously widening and intensifying Northern opposition to the expansion of those interests. A damaging public perception also existed that President Buchanan had improperly influenced and endorsed the Dred Scott decision, incorrectly believing that it had solved his main political problem. Such influence would violate the separation of powers. The wide gap between Democratic rhetoric and results alienated voters, while defeat in the North and intra-party defection combined to make the party both more Southern and more radical.
Democrats lost seats in some slave states as the disturbing turn of national events and surge in sectional tensions alarmed a significant minority of Southern voters. Southern politicians opposing both Democrats and extremism, but unwilling to affiliate with Republicans, ran on the Southern Opposition Party ticket (not to be conflated with the Opposition Party of 1854).
For 11 states, this was the last full congressional election until the Reconstruction. Twenty-nine elected members quit near the end of the session following their states' secession from the Union, whose immediate motivation was the result of the presidential election of 1860.
Election summaries
One seat each was added for the new states of Oregon and Kansas.
Maps
Special elections
There were special elections in 1858 and 1859 to the 35th United States Congress and 36th United States Congress.
Special elections are sorted by date then district.
35th Congress
36th Congress
Alabama
Arkansas
California
California held its election September 7, 1859. From statehood to 1864, California's members were elected at-large, with the top finishers winning election.
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kansas Territory
See non-voting delegates, below.
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Elections held September 13, 1858.
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Minnesota became a new state in 1858 having already elected its first two members at-large in October 1857 to finish the current term. The state then held elections to the next term October 4, 1859.
Mississippi
Elections held late, on October 3, 1859.
Missouri
Nebraska Territory
See non-voting delegates, below.
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
North Carolina
Ohio
Ohio elected its members October 12, 1858, netting a 3-seat Republican gain.
Oregon
35th Congress
36th Congress
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Tennessee
Elections held late, on August 4, 1859.
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
Wisconsin
Non-voting delegates
See also
- 1858 United States elections
- 1858–59 United States Senate elections
- 35th United States Congress
- 36th United States Congress
Notes
References
Bibliography
- Dubin, Michael J. (March 1, 1998). United States Congressional Elections, 1788-1997: The Official Results of the Elections of the 1st Through 105th Congresses. McFarland and Company. ISBN 978-0786402830.
- Martis, Kenneth C. (January 1, 1989). The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789-1989. Macmillan Publishing Company. ISBN 978-0029201701.
- Moore, John L., ed. (1994). Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections (Third ed.). Congressional Quarterly Inc. ISBN 978-0871879967.
- "Party Divisions of the House of Representatives* 1789–Present". Office of the Historian, House of United States House of Representatives. Retrieved January 21, 2015.
- Auman, William T. (January 23, 2014). Civil War in the North Carolina Quaker Belt: The Confederate Campaign Against Peace Agitators, Deserters and Draft Dodgers. McFarland and Company. ISBN 9781476612997.
External links
- Office of the Historian (Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives)
