1866–67 United States House of Representatives elections

←  1864 & 1865 June 4, 1866 – September 6, 1867[a] 1868 & 1869 →
All 224[b] seats in theUnited States House of Representatives 113 seats needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Leader Schuyler Colfax Samuel Marshall Party Republican Democratic Leader's seat Indiana 9th Illinois 11th Last election 150 seats[c] 33 seats Seats won 173 47 Seat change 23 14 Popular vote 2,611,309 1,919,507 Percentage 55.36% 40.69% Swing 1.89pp[d] 1.28pp   Third party Fourth party   Party Conservative Independent Last election 5 seats 1 seat Seats won 2 2[e] Seat change 3 1 Popular vote 94,455 83,205 Percentage 2.00% 1.76% Swing 0.19pp 0.70pp
House election results map.Red represents seats won by theRepublicans andblue denotes those won by theDemocrats.
Speaker before election Schuyler Colfax Republican ElectedSpeaker Schuyler Colfax Republican

The1866–67 United States House of Representatives elections were held on various dates in various states between June 4, 1866, and September 6, 1867. They occurred duringPresidentAndrew Johnson's term just one year after theAmerican Civil War ended when theUnion defeated theConfederacy. Each state set its own date for its elections to theHouse of Representatives. Members were elected before or after the first session of the40th United States Congress convened on March 4, 1867, including the at-large seat from the new state of Nebraska. Ten secessionist states still had not yet been readmitted, and therefore were not seated.

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

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 theCapitol and aside from the delegation fromTennessee who were allowed in, the few Southern Congressmen who arrived were not seated.

Johnson, aWar Democrat, had been electedVice President in the1864 presidential election as therunning mate ofAbraham Lincoln, aRepublican. (The Republicans had chosen not to re-nominateHannibal Hamlin for a second term as vice president).

Lincoln and Johnson ran together under the banner of theNational Union Party, which brought together Republicans (with the exception of some hard-lineabolitionist Radical Republicans who backedJohn C. Frémont, who eventually dropped out of the race after brokering a deal with Lincoln) and the War Democrats (the minority of Democrats who backed Lincoln's prosecution of the war, as opposed to thePeace Democrats, or Copperheads, who favored a negotiated settlement with the Confederates).

After theassassination of Lincoln, Johnson became president. He immediately became embroiled in a dispute with the Radical Republicans over the conditions of Reconstruction; Johnson favored a lenient Reconstruction, while Radical Republicans wanted to continue the military occupation of the South and force Southern states to givefreedmen (the newly freedslaves)civil rights (and theright to vote).

Johnson stumped the country in a public speaking tour known as theSwing Around the Circle; he generally supportedDemocrats but his speeches were poorly received.

TheRepublicans won in a landslide, capturing enough seats to override Johnson's vetoes. Only theborder states ofDelaware,Maryland, andKentucky voted for Democrats. Recently Reconstructed Tennessee sent a Republican delegation. The other 10 ex-Confederate states did not vote. As a percentage of the total number of seats available in the House of Representatives, the Republican majority attained in the election of 1866 has never been exceeded in any subsequent Congress. The Democratic Party was able to achieve similar success only in the political environment of the era of theGreat Depression in the 1930s.

Seven secessionist states were readmitted during this Congress, filling 32 vacancies, but are not included in this table if they were not elected within 1866 through 1867.^[1]

State	Type	Date	Total seats	Democratic		Conservative		Republican		Others
				Seats	Change	Seats	Change	Seats	Change	Seats	Change
Oregon	At-large	June 4, 1866	1	0		0		1		0
Vermont	Districts	Sep 4, 1866	3	0		0		3		0
Maine	Districts	Sep 10, 1866	5	0		0		5		0
Indiana	Districts	Oct 9, 1866	11	3	1	0		8	1	0
Iowa	Districts	Oct 9, 1866	6	0		0		6		0
Nebraska	At-large	Oct 9, 1866	1	0		0		1		0
Ohio	Districts	Oct 9, 1866	19	2		0		17		0
Pennsylvania	Districts	Oct 9, 1866	24	6	3	0		18	3	0
West Virginia	Districts	Oct 25, 1866	3	0		0		3	3	0	3[g]
Delaware	At-large	Nov 6, 1866 (Election Day)[h]	1	1		0		0		0
Illinois	District + 1 at-large		14	3		0		11		0
Kansas	At-large		1	0		0		1		0
Maryland	Districts		5	3	1	1	1	1	1	0	3[g]
Massachusetts	Districts		10	0		0		10		0
Michigan	Districts		6	0		0		6		0
Minnesota	Districts		2	0		0		2		0
Missouri	Districts		9	1		0		8		0
Nevada	At-large		1	0		0		1		0
New Jersey	Districts		5	2	1	0		3	1	0
New York	Districts		31	10	1	0		21[e]	1	0
Wisconsin	Districts		6	1		0		5		0
Late elections (after the March 4, 1867 beginning of Congress)
New Hampshire	Districts	Mar 12, 1867	3	0		0		3		0
Connecticut	Districts	Apr 1, 1867	4	3	3	0		1	3	0
Rhode Island	Districts	Apr 3, 1867	2	0		0		2		0
Kentucky	Districts	May 4, 1867	9[i]	7	2	0		1	1	0	4[j]
Tennessee	Districts	Aug 3, 1867	8	0		0		8	8	0	8[k]
California	Districts	Sep 6, 1867	3	2	2	0		1	2	0
Secessionist states not yet readmitted
Alabama	Districts	—	6	0		0		0		0
Arkansas	Districts	—	3	0		0		0		0
Florida	At-large	—	1	0		0		0		0
Georgia	Districts	—	7	0		0		0		0
Louisiana	Districts	—	5	0		0		0		0
Mississippi	Districts	—	5	0		0		0		0
North Carolina	Districts	—	7	0		0		0		0
South Carolina	Districts	—	4	0		0		0		0
Texas	Districts	—	4	0		0		0		0
Virginia	Districts	—	8	0		0		0		0
Total[b]			193[l]	44 22.8%	4	1 0.5%	1	147[e] 76.2%	12	0 0.0%	18[m]

The party affiliations of the 4 Representatives elected in Texas's rejected elections are unknown.

California elections

← 1864 September 6, 1867 1868 →
3 seats
Majority party Minority party   Party Democratic Republican Last election 0 3 Seats won 2 1 Seat change 2 2 Popular vote 48,346 44,436 Percentage 52.1% 47.9%
Democratic gain   Republican hold

Seenon-voting delegates, below.

Seenon-voting delegates, below.

Seenon-voting delegates, below.

Missouri elected its members on November 6, 1866.

Seenon-voting delegates, below.

There were two elections in the new state ofNebraska in 1866: on June 6 for the remainder of the current term, and October 9 for the next term.

Seenon-voting delegates, below.

Democrats gained one seat this election inOhio. It was later contested and awarded to the Republican for a net gain of zero.

Elections held late, on August 1, 1867.

Seenon-voting delegates, below.

Seenon-voting delegates, below.

Wisconsin elected six members of congress on Election Day, November 4, 1866.

• 1866 United States elections
  • 1866–67 United States Senate elections
• 39th United States Congress
• 40th United States Congress

• Beale, Howard K. (1930).The Critical Year.
• Dubin, Michael J. (March 1, 1998).United States Congressional Elections, 1788-1997: The Official Results of the Elections of the 1st Through 105th Congresses. McFarland and Company.ISBN 978-0786402830.
• Martis, Kenneth C. (January 1, 1989).The Historical Atlas of Political Parties in the United States Congress, 1789-1989. Macmillan Publishing Company.ISBN 978-0029201701.
• ▌McPherson, Edward (1875).The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction. Solomons & Chapman.mcpherson period of reconstruction., large collection of speeches and primary documents, 1865–1870, complete text online (the copyright has expired)
• Moore, John L., ed. (1994).Congressional Quarterly's Guide to U.S. Elections (Third ed.). Congressional Quarterly Inc.ISBN 978-0871879967.
• Parrish, William E. (1971).A History of Missouri, Volume 3: 1860 to 1875. Columbia: University of Missouri Press.ISBN 978-0-8262-0108-9.
• Riddleberger, Patrick W. (1979).1866, the critical year revisited.
• Trefousse, Hans L. (1989).Andrew Johnson: A Biography.
• "Party Divisions of the House of Representatives* 1789–Present". Office of the Historian, House of United States House of Representatives. RetrievedJanuary 21, 2015.

• Office of the Historian (Office of Art & Archives, Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives)

• 1866 United States House of Representatives elections
• 1867 United States House of Representatives elections
• Presidency of Andrew Johnson
• Schuyler Colfax

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