1796 United States House of Representatives elections in New York

The 1796 United States House of Representatives elections in New York were held on December 15, 1796 to elect ten U.S. Representatives to represent the State of New York in the United States House of Representatives of the 5th United States Congress.

United States House of Representatives elections in New York, 1796

December 15, 1796

All 10 New York seats to the United States House of Representatives
  Majority party Minority party
 
Party Federalist Democratic-Republican
Last election 4 6
Seats won 6 4
Seat change 2 2
Popular vote 17,265 9,890
Percentage 63.6% 36.4%

Background

Ten U.S. Representatives had been elected in December 1794 to a term in the 4th United States Congress beginning on March 4, 1795. Their term would end on March 3, 1797.

Congressional districts

On January 27, 1789, the New York State Legislature had divided the State of New York into six congressional districts which were not numbered.[1] On December 18, 1792, the Legislature divided the State into ten districts, which were still not numbered, taking into account the new counties created in 1791. The geographical area of the congressional districts remained at this election the same as at the previous election in December 1794. A new county was created, Schoharie Co. Most of the new Schoharie County was taken from Albany County, and remained in the 8th District, a part was taken from Otsego County, and remained in the 10th District. Besides, inside the 10th District a new county had been created: Steuben Co.

Note: There are now 62 counties in the State of New York. The counties which are not mentioned in this list had not yet been established, or sufficiently organized, the area being included in one or more of the abovementioned counties.

Result

6 Federalists and 4 Democratic-Republicans were elected. The incumbents Havens, Livingston, Van Cortlandt, Van Alen, Glen and Williams were re-elected; the incumbents Bailey and Cooper were defeated; and John Hathorn and Ezekiel Gilbert did not run for re-election.

1796 United States House election result
District Federalist Democratic-Republican Also ran
1 Selah Strong 648 Jonathan N. Havens 1,259
2 James Watson 1,812 Edward Livingston 2,362
3 Samuel Haight 1,003 Philip Van Cortlandt 1,016
4 Conrad E. Elmendorf 1,514 Lucas Elmendorf 1,937
5 David Brooks 1,220 Theodorus Bailey 1,018
6 Hezekiah L. Hosmer 1,036 John P. Van Ness 758
7 John E. Van Alen 1,585 John Woodworth 1,152
8 Henry Glen 480 Peter Swart 138
9 John Williams 1,325 Douw I. Fonda 210 James Gordon (Fed.) 575
10 James Cochran 3,092 Charles Williamson 40 William Cooper (Fed.) 2,975

Note: The Anti-Federalists called themselves "Republicans." However, at the same time, the Federalists called them "Democrats" which was meant to be pejorative. After some time both terms got more and more confused, and sometimes used together as "Democratic Republicans" which later historians have adopted (with a hyphen) to describe the party from the beginning, to avoid confusion with both the later established and still existing Democratic and Republican parties.

Aftermath

The House of Representatives of the 5th United States Congress met for the first time at Congress Hall in Philadelphia on May 15, 1797, and all ten representatives took their seats on this day.[2]

Notes

  1. The numbers which are used nowadays to describe these districts at this time derive from the numbers of the districts officially introduced in 1797, considering the sequence of the districts in the official listing and the approximate geographical equivalence.
  2. Abridgment of the Debates in Congress from 1789 to 1856 (Vol. II; page 120)

Sources

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