Talk:1860–61 United States House of Representatives elections

What's the vote count?
''what is the election of 1860? well,... it was a realigning election with Abraham Lincoln, blkesdfhkjdhgikjdsgbkjn and blah blah blah!!!! the end!'' What were the election results for 1860? Not the numbers of people who took their seats in January 1861. I am looking to see what were the results in November 1860. Does anyone know? This article is giving incomplete or wrong information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mitchflorida (talk • contribs) 20:51, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, reaching back in time a little here ...
 * The RESULTS of elections would be how the numbers of Members of Congress changed the body of Congress in each Chamber, the men Lincoln would have to deal with.
 * The election RETURNS would detail the votes in the counties of each district forming a plurality to choose a candidate. As I remember, some of the 19th Century 'Congressional Directories' had each Member's returns from each county in his district, but I do not think it was consistently published for each Congress. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:27, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Congressional delegations by region
Since the Congressional delegations are listed alphabetically in the referenced online link, and available in the wikipedia article, 37th Congress,
 * I thought to add value to the information in this ELECTIONS article by grouping the states in regions as defined by their political characteristics in 1860, maybe with an introductory paragraph or two for each region, like the effort for the West.
 * At the very least, since the vacated state delegations did not sit in the Congress, I mean for them to be set apart as the House did do itself, by expelling those members who had left, but not resigned, like Virginia's Senator H.M.T. Hunter.

. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 03:15, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

scholars should trump almanacs
In Freehling, that Anon ***67 deleted, we have a map of US sections, 1860, from which to discuss Congressional voting patterns, and census data. The map maker for his volume is David Fuller. Mmost general readership publications such as almanacs do not.

Taking a point of view that includes the United States in 1860, that is, the scope of this article, the referenced map (Freehling) includes Categories differ for different purposes. The Almanac’s "Deep South", referenced by the anon.****67, is used to delete the Freehling reference without explanation. Well, Anon***67 does assert what IS there is not.
 * The 'Border North', IA, IL, IN, OH, PA, NJ.
 * The 'Border South', DE, MD, KY, MO.
 * The 'Middle South', VA, NC, TN, AK.
 * The 'Lower South', TX, LA, MS, AL, GA,SC, FL.

Freehling, a noted period scholar, is concerned about each county, each Congressional District, a level of interest, research and detail which is inadmissible in most almanacs. I do know that “Deep South” was used by “The Southern Strategy”, but what scholar would one choose for 1860? It may be that ****67 supposes what was there was not.

Denied and expunged by the unnamed using the unnamed, FREEHLING wrote: "the section's areas with 5 percent or less slaves, here called the white belt South, stretched past its Border South core to cover the most mountainous sections of the Middle South, including western Virginia and eastern Tennessee, and of the Lower South, including northern Georgia and northern Alabama. Here, white belt non-slaveholders lacked black belt non-slaveholders' reasons for proslavery zealotry." The anonymous says anonymous says that this is not so.

In Virginia’s case, most voted to stay in the Union. There was an absolute failure in secession at the first convention, and a the second's referendum recommendation by a self-described incompetent conclave. It was regional, mal-apportioned by the slaver Constitution, skewing county delegations by fiat to slavers by property value assessed (slaves held), apart from free people, white and black. But the anonymous editor reading an almanac writer might believe that, based on state-wide aggregates, something might have been so that was not.

See the history of the egregiously corrupt and coercive slaver Le Compton Kansas Constitution and its referendum boycott for context and precedent: even Doughface Democrats voted against the outrage in Congress. But without looking at individual counties as period scholar Freehling does, the unnamed almanac writer might aggregate Virginia and other state slave populations on average and think something in the case of Virginia was so, when it was not.

It may be that Anon ***67 wants to create the fiction of a Solid South, with NO South “white belt”, no Unionist West(ern) Virginians, but that was just not so, unless the almanac writer ignores the people, with, without, or once slaves themselves. But a history of the United States Congress without consideration of “all men” resident in the nation cannot be seen as reliable, because such imagery is not.

Furthermore, DaCapo editors, (however much I admire them as serious scholars, and they are, and I do, AND their publishing house) they have made their niche a focus on the South, also the US; on the Confederacy, also the Union; on black history, also white. This article is about the US Congress. Any focus other than the whole does not comprehend the national legislature, because it cannot.

What states might be the "Deep South" that Anon **67 chooses to refer to? Why not use both "Lower South" of Freehling AND "Deep South" of Anonymous *67’s anonymous almanac writer? To arbitrarily suppress an account of a scholar for an article without searching for a consensus isn’t collegial, because it is not.

I suggest a footnote observing almanacs and other general readership sources refer to a category called “Deep South”, and they aggregate percentages differently from the referenced scholar, Freehling. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 04:01, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

The 5% county purge.
The citation to the expunged Freehling pages 15-16 should read 13-16. But page 16 cited is the difference in data, and page 16 was properly cited. The error is in data aggregation.

The idea is to convey the South’s ‘white belt’. In 1860, the basis for unionist votes in the South, and, during the Civil War, the political and guerrilla base for persistent unionist sentiment, was found generally along the Appalachians in Va, Tn, NC, SC, AL and Ga, in COUNTIES with under 5% slaves.

These are the people ***67 erased in STATE aggregates, citing 5% low range among slaves held in border states. But the storied ‘Solid South’ in rebellion was not. Ask any West Virginian. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 13:40, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Regional results into columns, numbering disambiguation

 * For the "Regional results" section, an editorial introduction to the related district articles itemizes the linked state district articles. In a period before the Census aggregated population data into Congressional Districts, it is useful to note District composition. The introduction includes the three places WP articles describe the 1860 House districts. It omits calling out those articles without it.
 * The listing is organized in columns to ease access to text. It also provides a ready graphic presentation of the relative population size of the states in each region and among the regions at the time of the 37th Congress. Two regions are visible in a viewer’s screen, allowing for immediate comparison and assessment of the 1860 relative importance by population size.
 * The naming convention for the districts in each state delegation has been amended to disambiguate a simple line enumeration 1., 2., 3., from the Congressional Districts, CT-1, CT-2, CT-3. This enables the reader to apprehend the link to the district in addition to the spelled out representatives name. The first posting is labeled part (a), the second, part (b).  TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 17:00, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Members listing.

 * (1) The article should maintain a consistent format for all state delegations. Unlike Wikipedia lists, in an article, COLUMNS should be used for long enumerations. They bring advantages in reader access and economy of space, following conventional format familiar to the reader in publications such as the Congressional Biographical Dictionary. (2) Charts should not be imported wholesale from other wiki-articles for Ohio and California favorites only. Best to treat all state delegations uniformly.
 * (3) The state-bio-election % charts are irrelevant to this Congress article; the personal data should be readily available in the personal article for each member, and each member's name in the Congressional delegation list should be linked to their Wikipedia bio article. (4) Comprehensively restating tables from the Congressional Directory for each member's political biography would not serve the general readership, and WP: articles are not to mirror others.
 * (5) The general observations on the generational composition of this Congress should be restored to expand the narrative based on scholarly sources beyond readily available GPO reference documents.
 * -- Any discussion? TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 14:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry… I was the one whose formatting pinged your comment.  I certainly agree with your points. I think that the 1860 election article should be treated like other election articles and that's why I formatted it thusly.  You've done such great analysis on the regional differences, so I left that part enact.  The columns don't work with tables, and all the states should be put in tables.  The old way doesn't mention challengers, predecessors, incumbents, etc, but the new way (Calif. & Ohio at least) does.  We need to include more that just the winners, because that's already in 37th United States Congress.—GoldRingChip  15:01, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

People's Party

 * I'll be honest, I'm not very sure what the People's Party was, other than it seems to have a minor break from, or rather a twin branch too, the Republican Party, which existed largely from 1858 to 1860. If someone else to possibly inform me as to their history, I would be very grateful. --Ariostos (talk) 02:40, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Edit intro into five paragraphs

 * I've edited the intro into five paragraphs:
 * a) elections in the country, left unchanged.
 * b) organizing impact on the House,
 * c) onset of the rebellion,
 * d) its effect in the House, and
 * e) changes in caucus affiliations, left unchanged. TheVirginiaHistorian (talk) 20:25, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

states rights party
https://history.house.gov/Institution/Party-Divisions/Party-Divisions/ they are not listed on this source. What is the source for them winning a seat? Also, the source I am using only says there are 30 unionists, not 31. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.8.0.165 (talk) 16:06, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:1788 and 1789 United States House of Representatives elections which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 21:18, 19 November 2022 (UTC)