United States House election, 1860

United States House of Representatives elections, 1860

← 1858 August 6, 1860 - October 24, 1861 1862 →
All 183 seats to the United States House of Representatives 92 seats were needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader William Pennington Samuel Cox Francis Thomas Party Republican Democratic Unionist Leader's seat New Jersey-5th (defeated) Ohio-12th Maryland-5th Last election 116 seats 98 seats 0 seats Seats won 108 45 30 Seat change 8 53 30
Speaker before election William Pennington Republican Elected Speaker Galusha Grow Republican

William Pennington
Republican

Galusha Grow
Republican

Elections to the United States House of Representatives for the 37th United States Congress were held August 1860 through September 1861. Following the presidential election of 1860, Electoral College vote and Inauguration swearing-in, their term would coincide with the first two years of Abraham Lincoln's first administration.

Republican candidates won increasing percentages of the House in 1856, 1858 and, in 1860, after secessionist losses, they amounted to 59% of the House. In the same six-year period of political chaos running up to the American Civil War, the Democratic Party atrophied from holding the presidency and a two-thirds majority, to a minority caucus of less than one-third and loss of supporting presidential patronage.

This election forged Northern unity behind the pro-union Republican Party of 108 Representatives, and broad based pro-union majorities in the north and south border states among the mostly Douglas Democrats with 45 members and the Unionists and others amounting to another 30.

The last of a Democratic Party dominated by the slave-holding states was left to a remnant. The national party was destroyed by infighting over slavery, with minority cotton state delegates walking out in national conventions at Charleston and again at Baltimore. They were left with a rump session of cotton South delegates nominating John Breckinridge in Richmond. Those delegates returning to Congress withdrew, resigned, or were expelled. The nativist American Party completely collapsed in 1860.

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