United States House of Representatives elections, 1800

United States House of Representatives elections, 1800

1798 ← April 29, 1800 - August 1, 1801 → 1802

All 106 seats to the United States House of Representatives 54 seats were needed for a majority   Majority party Minority party   Leader Nathaniel Macon James A. Bayard Party Democratic-Republican Federalist Leader's seat North Carolina-5th Delaware-AL Last election 46 seats 60 seats Seats won 68 38 Seat change 22 22

Results:   Federalist majority   Anti-Federalist majority   Even split

Speaker before election Theodore Sedgwick Federalist Elected Speaker Nathaniel Macon Democratic-Republican

Theodore Sedgwick
Federalist

Nathaniel Macon
Democratic-Republican

Elections to the United States House of Representatives for the 7th Congress in 1800 and 1801, at the same time as the 1800 presidential election, in which Vice President Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic Republican, defeated incumbent President John Adams, a Federalist.

These elections resulted in the Democratic-Republicans picking up 22 seats from the Federalists. This brought the Democratic-Republicans a solid majority of 68 seats, whereas the Federalists were only able to secure 38. Many state legislatures also changed to Democratic-Republican control, with the result that many new Democratic-Republicans were voted into the Senate. The Federalists never again succeeded in gaining a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, and it was soon normal for them to control fewer than a third of the seats until the national Federalist party disintegrated completely in the early 1820s.

The victory of Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans can be attributed partially to unpopular policies pursued by the Adams administration, including the Alien and Sedition Acts, which sought to curtail guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of the press spelled out in the Bill of Rights.