1854 and 1855 United States House of Representatives elections

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.

1854 and 1855 U.S. House of Representatives elections

August 4, 1854 – November 6, 1855
All 234 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives[1] 118 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader William A. Richardson Henry M. Fuller Nathaniel P. Banks Party Democratic Whig Know Nothing Leader's seat Illinois 5th Pennsylvania 12th Massachusetts 7th Last election 150 seats 71 seats 0 seats Seats won 81[lower-alpha 1][2][3] 54[lower-alpha 2] 51[2][3][lower-alpha 3] Seat change 69 17 51 Popular vote 1,418,553[lower-alpha 4] 580,929 631,510 Percentage 43.95% 18.00% 19.56% Swing 5.87% 23.61% 19.25%   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   Party Anti-Nebraska Republican People's Last election Pre-creation Pre-creation Pre-creation Seats won 22[lower-alpha 2] 13[lower-alpha 2] 9[4][lower-alpha 2] Seat change 22 13 9 Popular vote 196,461 182,245 102,423 Percentage 6.09% 5.65% 3.17% Swing New Party New Party New Party   Seventh party Eighth party   Party Free Soil Independent Last election 4 seats 3 seats Seats won 1[lower-alpha 2] 1[lower-alpha 5] Seat change 3 2 Popular vote 22,928 84,196[lower-alpha 6] Percentage 0.71% 2.61% Swing 3.28% 0.18%
Results:      Democratic gain      Whig gain      Democratic hold      Whig hold      American gain      Anti-Nebraska gain      Republican gain      People's gain      Independent gain
Speaker before election Linn Boyd Democratic Elected Speaker Nathaniel P. Banks Know Nothing

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. Democrats lost 69 seats, nearly half their House delegation, with Northern voters strongly opposed to the Kansas–Nebraska Act shifting sharply against them. Whigs lost 17 seats as the party disintegrated over slavery.

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, disaffected Northern Democrats, and members of the nascent Republican Party, which would soon absorb most of these factions and replace the Whigs as rival to the Democrats.

Candidates opposed to the Democratic Party won widely in the North through November 1854. 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 from November 1854 into 1855.

Congress had passed the Kansas–Nebraska Act in May 1854 after aggressive sponsorship by the Pierce Administration and Democrats led by Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, including an outspoken contingent of radical pro-slavery legislators. The Act 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 comprising the northern portion 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 Northern settlers and geographically closer Southern settlers. Even some pro-slavery voters, particularly Southern Whigs, felt repealing the Missouri Compromise was politically reckless and attempting to push slavery by law and force into territories where most settlers predictably were unlikely to want it endangered its continued legal protection anywhere, even in the South. These fears proved prescient.

The election of the Speaker was the most contentious in history, as 21 Representatives sought the post. After two months and 133 ballots, American Party Representative Nathaniel Banks of Massachusetts, also a Free Soiler, defeated Democrat William Aiken of South Carolina by plurality and by three votes, 103-100.[5] Banks is also the only Speaker from a third party to date.