United States House of Representatives elections, 1866

United States House of Representatives elections, 1866.

← 1864 June 4, 1866 - September 6, 1867 1868 →
All 224 seats to the United States House of Representatives 113 seats were needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party Third party   Leader Schuyler Colfax Samuel Marshall Nathaniel Boyden Party Republican Democratic Conservative Leader's seat Indiana-9th Illinois-11th North Carolina-6th Last election 137 seats 38 seats 0 seats Seats won 175 47 2 Seat change 38 9 2
Speaker before election Schuyler Colfax Republican Elected Speaker Schuyler Colfax Republican Party (United States) Map of U.S. House elections results from 1866 elections for 40th Congress

Schuyler Colfax
Republican

Schuyler Colfax
Republican Party (United States)

Elections to the United States House of Representatives were held in 1866 to elect Representatives to the 40th United States Congress.

The elections occurred just one year after the American Civil War ended when the Union defeated the Confederacy.

The 1866 elections were a decisive event in the early Reconstruction era, in which President Andrew Johnson faced off against the Radical Republicans in a bitter dispute over whether Reconstruction should be lenient or harsh toward the vanquished South.

Most of the congressmen from the former Confederate states were either prevented from leaving the state or were arrested on the way to the capital. A Congress consisting of mostly Radical Republicans sat early in the Capitol and aside from the delegation from Tennessee who were allowed in, the few Southern Congressmen who arrived were not seated.

Johnson, a War Democrat, had been elected Vice President in the 1864 presidential election as the running mate of Abraham Lincoln, a Republican. (The Republicans had chosen not to re-nominate Hannibal Hamlin for a second term as Vice President).