United States House of Representatives elections, 1862

United States House of Representatives elections, 1862

June 2, 1862 - November 3, 1863[Note 1]

All 184[Note 2] seats to the United States House of Representatives 93 seats were needed for a majority   First party Second party Third party   Leader Galusha Grow Samuel Cox Francis Thomas Party Republican Democratic Constitutional Union Leader's seat Pennsylvania-14th (defeated) Ohio-7th Maryland-4th Last election 108 seats 45 seats 28 seats Seats won 87[Note 3] 72 25 Seat change 21 27 3

Map of U.S. House elections results from 1862 elections for 38th Congress

Speaker before election Galusha Grow (defeated) Republican Elected Speaker Schuyler Colfax Republican

Elections to the United States House of Representatives were held in 1862, mostly in November, in the middle of President Abraham Lincoln's first term. His Republicans lost 22 seats in Congress, while the Democrats picked up 28, for a net swing of 50 seats (or 27 percent) out of a total House membership of 185.

The mid-term elections in 1862 brought the Republicans serious losses due to sharp disfavor with the Administration over its failure to deliver a speedy end to the war, as well as rising inflation, high new taxes, ugly rumors of corruption, the suspension of habeas corpus, the draft law, and fears that freed slaves would undermine the labor market. The Emancipation Proclamation announced in September gained votes in Yankee areas of New England and the upper Midwest, but it lost votes in the ethnic cities and the lower Midwest. While Republicans were discouraged, Democrats were energized and did especially well in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and New York. Elated Democrats from the Northwest hailed the elections as a repudiation of the emancipation heresy.^[1]

The Republicans did keep control of the major states except New York. Most important, the Republicans retained control of the House, in spite of falling from 59% of the seats to just over 46% because of their alliance with the 24 Unionist representatives; the Unionists were a group of disaffected pro-war Democrats who broke with their party during the previous Congress. The voters, editorialized the Cincinnati Gazette, "are depressed by the interminable nature of this war, as so far conducted, and by the rapid exhaustion of the national resources without progress.".^[2]

A typical result came in Lincoln's home district of Springfield, Illinois, where John T. Stuart, a Democrat and one of Lincoln's former law partners, defeated the Republican incumbent. Anti-black sentiments that overwhelmingly favored forbidding immigration of freed slaves and preventing black suffrage was primarily responsible.^[3]

Election summaries

Tennessee and Virginia had been partially represented in the 37th Congress with 8 filled seats between them, but were unrepresented in the 38th Congress. The other 9 secessionist states had been unrepresented in the 37th Congress and remained unrepresented in the 38th, leaving 58 vacancies^[4] (61, including the new state of West Virginia).

Reapportionment took place according to the 1860 Census, using the 1850 Apportionment bill^[5] which provided for a permanent total of 233 seats, but a subsequent bill added an additional 8 seats,^[6] increasing the number of seats to 241 (58 of which were in secessionist states, once the three new seats for West Virginia are excluded from the total), a net gain of 2 seats over the previous Congress. Excluding the secessionist states, 2 states lost 2 seats each, 5 states lost 1 seat, 11 states had no change in apportionment, 2 states gained 2 seats each, 1 state gained 3 seats, 1 gained 4 seats, and 1 gained 5 seats. Within the secessionist states, 3 states lost 2 seats each, 3 lost 1 seat, 2 had no change, 2 gained 1 seat each, and 1 gained 2 seats, a net loss of five seats apportioned to those states.

Upon the admission of West Virginia, 3 of Virginia's seats were reassigned to the new State, filling 3 vacancies,^[7] and during the 2nd session, one seat was added for the new State of Nevada.^[8]

State	Type	Date	Total seats		Republican	Democratic	Unionist[Note 4]
			Seats	Change	Seats	Change	Seats	Change	Seats	Change
Illinois	District + 1 at-large	November 4, 1862 (Election Day)[Note 5]	14	5	5	1	9	4	0
Kansas	At-large		1		1		0		0
Michigan	District		6	2	5	1	1	1	0
Minnesota	District[Note 6]		2		2		0		0
Missouri	District		9	2	1		0	5	8	7
New Jersey	District		5		1	1	4	1	0
New York	District		31	2	14	9	17	7	0
Wisconsin	District		6	3	3		3	3	0
Delaware	At-large	November 1, 1862	1		0		1	1	0	1
Indiana	District	October 14, 1862	11		4	3	7	3	0
Iowa	District	October 14, 1862	6	4	6	4	0		0
Maine	District	September 8, 1862	5	1	4	2	1	1	0
Massachusetts	District	November 1, 1862	10	1	10		0		0	1
Ohio	District	October 14, 1862	19	2	5	8	14	6	0
Oregon	At-large	June 2, 1862	1		1	1	0	1	0
Pennsylvania	District	October 14, 1862	24	1	12[Note 3]	7	12	6	0
1863 elections
California	At-large	September 2, 1863	3		3		0		0
Connecticut	District	April 6, 1863	4		3	1	1	1	0
Kentucky	District	August 3, 1863	9	1	0		0	1	9
Maryland	District	November 3, 1863	5	1	0		1	1	4	2
New Hampshire	District	March 10, 1863	3		2	1	1	1	0
Rhode Island	District	April 1, 1863	2		2	2	0		0	2
Vermont	District	September 1, 1863	3		3		0		0
West Virginia[Note 7]	District	October 22, 1863	3	3	0		0		3	3
1864 election
Nevada[Note 7]	At-large	November 8, 1864	1	1	1	1	0		0
Secessionist States
Alabama	District		6	1
Arkansas	District		3	1
Florida	At-large		1
Georgia	District		7	1
Louisiana	District		5	1						2
Mississippi	District		5
North Carolina	District		7	1
South Carolina	District		4	2
Tennessee	District		8	2						3
Texas	District		4	2
Virginia	District		11[Note 8]	2						5
Total[Note 2]			184 58 Vacancies[Note 9]	3	87[Note 3] 47.3%	23	72 39.1%	27	25 13.6%	5

List of races

California

Note: From statehood to 1866, California's representatives were elected at-large, with the top two vote-getters winning election from 1849 to 1858; in 1860 when California gained a seat in the House the top three vote-getters were elected.

Ohio

See also

• United States elections, 1862
  • United States Senate elections, 1862 and 1863
• 37th United States Congress
• 38th United States Congress

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Carson, Jamie L. et al. "The Impact of National Tides and District-Level Effects on Electoral Outcomes: The U.S. Congressional Elections of 1862-63," American Journal of Political Science, Oct 2001, Vol. 45 Issue 4, pp 887–898 in JSTOR
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union: vol 6. War Becomes Revolution, 1862-1863 (1960)
• Shankman, Arnold. "Francis W. Hughes and the 1862 Pennsylvania Election." Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1971 95(3): 383-393. ISSN 0031-4587
• Tap, Bruce. "Race, Rhetoric, and Emancipation: the Election of 1862 in Illinois." Civil War History 1993 39(2): 101-125. ISSN 0009-8078
• Voegeli, Jacque. "The Northwest and the Race Issue, 1861-1862," Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 50, No. 2 (Sep., 1963), pp. 235–251 IN jstor
• 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. 

External links

• Office of the Historian (Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives)