1856 and 1857 United States House of Representatives elections

Elections to the United States House of Representatives for the 35th Congress were held at various dates in different states from August 1856 to November 1857.

1856 and 1857 United States House of Representatives elections

August 4, 1856 – November 4, 1857[lower-alpha 1]
All 237 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives 118 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Leader James Orr Galusha A. Grow Party Democratic Republican Leader's seat South Carolina 5th Pennsylvania 14th Last election 81 seats 45 seats[lower-alpha 2] Seats won 132 90 Seat change 51 45 Popular vote 1,805,827 1,425,265 Percentage 46.85% 36.98% Swing 2.90% 21.36%[lower-alpha 3]   Third party Fourth party   Party Know Nothing Independent Last election 51 seats 1 seats[lower-alpha 4] Seats won 14 1[lower-alpha 5] Seat change 37 Popular vote 586,254 34,120[lower-alpha 6] Percentage 15.21% 0.89% Swing 4.35% 1.72%
Speaker before election Nathaniel Banks Know Nothing Elected Speaker James Orr Democratic

The elections briefly returned a semblance of normalcy to the Democratic Party, restoring its House majority amid election of Democratic President James Buchanan. However, victory masked severe, ultimately irretrievable divisions over the slavery issue. Voters next would return a Democratic House majority only in 1874.

Party realignments continued. In 1856, the Whig Party disbanded while the Know Nothing movement declined and its vehicle, the American Party, began to collapse. Many former Northern Whig and American Party Representatives joined the Republican Party, which contended for the Presidency in 1856 and was rapidly consolidating. Though it did not yet demand abolition, its attitude toward slavery was stridently negative. Making no effort to win Southern voter support, it was openly sectional, opposed to fugitive slave laws and slavery in the territories, and for the first time offered a mainstream platform to outspoken abolitionists.

In March 1857, after almost all Northern states had voted, the Supreme Court issued its Dred Scott decision, amplifying tensions and hardening voter attitudes. Remaining elections, scheduled after the decision, were concentrated in the South. Southern voters widely drove the American Party from office, rallying to the Democrats in firm opposition to the Republicans.

In this election cycle, the new state of Minnesota elected its first Representatives, to be seated by the 35th Congress. Between the admissions of Vermont in 1791 and Wisconsin in 1848, Congress had admitted new states roughly in pairs: one slave, one free. California had been admitted alone as a free state in 1850 only as part of a comprehensive compromise that included significant concessions to slave state interests. Admission of Minnesota in May 1858, also alone but with no such deal, helped expose the declining influence of the South, extinguishing the formerly binding concept that slave and free state power in Congress was best kept in balance while reinforcing a growing sense that public opinion would exclude slavery from the West.