“1854 United States House of Representatives elections”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Elections to the United States House of Representatives for the 34th Congress were held during President Franklin Pierce's term at various dates in different states from August 1854 to November 1855.

This midterm election was among the most disruptive in American history, auguring the collapse of the Second Party System. Both major parties, the Democratic Party and the Whig Party, organized as rivals for roughly 20 years, lost critical voter support. The Whig Party disintegrated over the slavery issue even as Northern voters, strongly opposing the Kansas–Nebraska Act, shifted sharply against Democrats. The elected majority temporarily coalesced as the Opposition Party. This transitional party included Whigs, Free Soil members, American Party members or Know Nothings, the People's Party of Indiana, Anti-Nebraska candidates, a few disaffected Northern Democrats, and members of the nascent Republican Party, which soon would amalgamate most of these factions, becoming the new rival to the Democrats.

Candidates opposed to the Democratic Party won widely in the North through November 1854, while the American Party, ignoring slavery and opposing immigration particularly by Catholics from Ireland and Germany, won seats from both major parties, but to the net loss of Democrats, in New England and the South in 1855.

Congress passed the Kansas–Nebraska Act in May 1854 after aggressive sponsorship by the Pierce Administration and Democrats led by Senator Stephen Douglas, including an outspoken contingent of radical pro-slavery legislators. It repealed the 1820 Missouri Compromise and triggered the Bleeding Kansas conflict. With widely foreseen risks and immediately negative results, the Act publicly discredited the Democratic Party, fueling new partisan and sectional rancor. It created violent uncertainty on the frontier by abruptly making slavery potentially legal in territories originally part of the Louisiana Purchase and attractive to contemporary settlers. Settlers were expected to determine the status of slavery locally. This idea appealed to Democratic politicians and to some voters in its shape and intent, but proved unworkable in Kansas where the status of slavery would be closely disputed between more numerous settlers from the North and geographically closer settlers from the South. Even some Southern voters who supported slavery, particularly Whigs, felt repealing the Missouri Compromise was politically reckless, and that attempting to push slavery by law and force into territories where settlers predictably were unlikely to want it generated needless hostility, politically endangering its continued legal protection even in the South. These fears proved prescient.

The election of the Speaker was the lengthiest and most contentious in history. More than 21 Representatives vied for the post. After two months and 133 ballots, American Party Representative Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts, who was also a Free Soiler, defeated Democrat William Aiken of South Carolina both by plurality and a margin of three votes.^[9]

Election summaries

Arkansas

California

Note: From statehood to 1864, 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.

Florida

Iowa

Maine

Missouri

Pennsylvania

Vermont

Wisconsin

See also

Notes

1. ^http://mcimaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/34th-Congress.png
2. ^¹²³⁴Martis, pp. 108–109.
3. ^¹²³⁴{{cite web | url=http://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/ |title=Party Divisions of the House of Representatives* 1789–Present |publisher=Office of the Historian, House of United States House of Representatives |date= |accessdate=January 21, 2015}}
4. ^¹²Counted as part of the plurality-winning "Opposition Party".
5. ^While Martis, et al. count 51 American Party members, Dubin (p. 174) counts 52.
6. ^According to Dubin (p. 174), this figure includes 13 Republicans, along with approximately 24 Anti-Nebraskans.
7. ^Compared to Free Soilers elected in the previous election of 1852.
8. ^Dubin, p. 174.
9. ^{{cite book |author=Allan Nevins |url= |title=Ordeal of the Union, Volume II: A House Dividing 1852-1857 |location=New York |year=1947 |pages=413–415 |isbn= }}
10. ^Compared to Whigs, Free Soilers, and Independents elected in the previous election of 1852.
11. ^In 1845, Congress passed a law providing for a uniform date for choosing presidential electors (see: Statutes at Large, 28th Congress, 2nd Session, p. 721). Congressional elections were unaffected by this law, but the date was gradually adopted by the states for Congressional elections as well.
12. ^At-large district abolished in redistricting.
13. ^Compared to just Whig Party members elected in the previous election of 1852. If Whig Party and Free Soil Party members are counted together, the increase was only {{increase}}25.
14. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/cspg/research/election_data_archive/pdf/WI_US_House_Election_Results.pdf|title=Wisconsin U.S. House Election Results|publisher=Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs|format=PDF|accessdate=August 27, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120405132933/http://www.hhh.umn.edu/centers/cspg/research/election_data_archive/pdf/WI_US_House_Election_Results.pdf|archive-date=April 5, 2012|dead-url=yes|df=mdy-all}}