1858–59 United States House of Representatives elections

States held the 1858–59 United States House of Representatives elections between June 7, 1858, and December 1, 1859, during President James Buchanan's term. Each state set a date for its elections to the House. Voters in 34 states, including the new state of Oregon and the pending new state of Kansas, elected 238 Representatives before the first session of the 36th United States Congress convened on December 5, 1859.

Winning a plurality for the first time, the Republicans benefited from multiple political factors. These included sectional strife in the Democratic Party, Northern voter anger 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 plunge 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 fear in the Northern United States, where slavery had ceased and was outlawed, that the Supreme Court would strike down limitations on slavery anywhere in the United States with a subsequent ruling in Lemmon v. New York.

An inflammatory antislavery manifesto entitled The Impending Crisis of the South had attracted attention during the previous session of Congress. The book's author, Hinton Rowan Helper, attacked the planter class as a tyrannical oligarchy and called on poor white Southerners to overthrow them, "peacefully if we can, violently if we must." The Republicans financed a special edition of Helper's book for mass circulation which was endorsed by 68 Republican members of Congress, including the Republican House leader John Sherman. Following the elections, Republicans were the largest party in the House but lacked an overall majority and were forced to rely on Southern Oppositionists to organize the chamber. These Southerners refused to vote for Sherman to become Speaker of the United States House of Representatives due to his association with The Impending Crisis. Sherman eventually withdrew in favor of William Pennington, who was elected.

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.

+ ↓ 98 5 19 116 Democratic KN Opp. Republican

State Type Date Totalseats Democratic Know Nothing Opposition Republican Seats Change Seats Change Seats Change Seats Change Oregon At-large June 7, 1858 1 1 1 0 0 0 Arkansas Districts August 2, 1858 2 2 0 0 0 Missouri Districts August 2, 1858 7 5 1 1 0 1 1 Vermont Districts September 7, 1858 3 0 0 0 3 Maine Districts September 13, 1858 6 0 0 0 6 Florida At-large October 4, 1858 1 1 0 0 0 South Carolina Districts October 10–11, 1858 6 6 0 0 0 Indiana Districts October 12, 1858 11 4 2 0 0 7 2 Iowa Districts October 12, 1858 2 0 0 0 2 Ohio Districts October 12, 1858 21 6 3 0 0 15 3 Pennsylvania Districts October 12, 1858 25 5 10 0 0 20 10 Delaware At-large November 2, 1858(Election Day) 1 1 0 0 0 Illinois Districts 9 5 0 0 4 Massachusetts Districts 11 0 0 0 11 Michigan Districts 4 0 0 0 4 New Jersey Districts 5 2 1 0 0 3 1 New York Districts 33 7 5 0 0 26 5 Wisconsin Districts 3 1 1 0 0 2 1 Late elections (after the March 4, 1859 beginning of the term) New Hampshire Districts March 8, 1859 3 0 0 0 3 Connecticut Districts April 4, 1859 4 0 2 0 0 4 2 Rhode Island Districts April 7, 1859 2 0 0 0 2 Virginia Districts May 26, 1859 13 12 1 0 1 1 0 Alabama Districts August 1, 1859 7 7 0 0 0 Kentucky Districts August 1, 1859 10 5 3 0 2 5 5 0 Texas Districts August 1, 1859 2 2 0 0 0 North Carolina Districts August 4, 1859 8 4 3 0 1 4 4 0 Tennessee Districts August 4, 1859 10 3 4 0 3 7 7 0 California At-large September 7, 1859 2 2 0 0 0 Georgia Districts October 3, 1859 8 6 0 2 2 2 0 Mississippi Districts October 3, 1859 5 5 0 0 0 Minnesota At-large October 4, 1859 2 0 2 0 0 2 2 Louisiana Districts November 7, 1859 4 3 1 0 0 Maryland Districts November 8, 1859 6 3 3 0 0 Kansas At-large December 1, 1859 1 0 0 0 1 1 Total 238 98 35 5 9 19 19 116 26

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

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

1858–59 United States House of Representatives elections

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