1822 United States House of Representatives elections in New York explained

Election Name:1822 United States House of Representatives elections in New York
Country:New York
Type:legislative
Ongoing:no
Previous Election:1821 United States House of Representatives elections in New York
Previous Year:1821
Next Election:1824 United States House of Representatives elections in New York
Next Year:1824
Seats For Election:All 34[1] New York seats to the United States House of Representatives
Election Date:November 4–6, 1822
Party1:Democratic-Republican Party
Last Election1:19
Seats1:30[2]
Seat Change1: 11
Party2:Federalist Party (United States)
Last Election2:8
Seats2:4[3]
Seat Change2: 4

The 1822 United States House of Representatives elections in New York were held from November 4 to 6, 1822, to elect 34 U.S. Representatives to represent the State of New York in the United States House of Representatives of the 18th United States Congress.

Background

27 U.S. Representatives had been elected in April 1821 to a term in the 17th United States Congress which had begun on March 4, 1821. Selah Tuthill died on September 7, 1821, before Congress met, and Charles Borland, Jr. had been elected to fill the vacancy. Solomon Van Rensselaer resigned his seat in January 1822, and Stephen Van Rensselaer had been elected to fill the vacancy. The representatives' term would end on March 3, 1823. Most previous congressional elections in New York had been held together with the annual State elections in late April, but under the New York Constitution of 1821, the elections were moved permanently to November: about four months before the congressional term began, and a little more than a year before Congress actually met on December 1, 1823.

At this time the Democratic-Republican Party in New York was split into two opposing factions: on one side, the supporters of DeWitt Clinton and his Erie Canal project; on the other side, the Bucktails (including the Tammany Hall organization in New York City), led by Martin Van Buren. At the same time, the Federalist Party had already disbanded, and most of its former members had joined the Clintonians.

Congressional districts

On April 17, 1822, the New York State Legislature re-apportioned the congressional districts according to the figures of the 1820 United States census. The number of district was increased to 30, creating eight new districts; the number of seats was increased to 34, creating for the first time a triple-seat district, and keeping two double-seat districts.

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

23 Bucktails and 11 Clintonian/Federalists were declared elected. The incumbents Wood, Morgan, Cambreleng, Van Wyck, Van Rensselaer, Taylor, Litchfield, Rochester and Tracy were re-elected; the incumbents Ruggles, Dickinson, Campbell and Woodcock were defeated.

1822 United States House election result
District colspan="2" Democratic-Republican/Bucktails colspan="2" Clintonian/Federalistalso ran
1stJohn P. Osborn[4] 1,353Silas Wood1,383
2ndJacob Tyson1,754Jacob Patchen[5] 174
3rdJohn J. Morgan4,428
Churchill C. Cambreleng4,389
Peter Sharpe4,199
4thJoel Frost2,214Abraham Smith678Peter A. Jay (Fed.)333
5thWilliam W. Van Wyck3,119Derick B. Stockholm[6] 1,265
6thCharles Ludlow1,617Hector Craig2,191
7thLemuel Jenkins2,864Charles H. Ruggles2,153
8thJoseph D. Monell[7] 1,940James Strong2,647
9thJames L. Hogeboom3,241John D. Dickinson2,859
10thStephen Van Rensselaer2,725
11thCharles A. Foote3,184John T. More2,698
12thLewis Eaton2,800Nicholas F. Beck[8] 1,549
13thIsaac Williams, Jr.2,343
14thEzekiel Bacon2,632Henry R. Storrs2,687
15thJohn Herkimer2,050Simeon Ford[9] 1,390
16thAlexander Sheldon2,148John W. Cady2,215
17thGeorge Palmer2,115John W. Taylor2,505
18thHenry C. Martindale2,424David Russell1,979
19thJohn Richards2,234Ezra C. Gross1,962
20thEgbert Ten Eyck6,455
Ela Collins6,407
21stLot Clark2,265Samuel Campbell821
22ndJustin Dwinell2,911
23rdElisha Litchfield2,042Asa Wells[10] 1,387
24thRowland Day2,622Jonathan Richmond1,804
25thDavid Woodcock2,215Samuel Lawrence2,449
26thMicah Brooks1,418Dudley Marvin4,511John Price (C/F)[11] 1,866
Robert S. Rose3,046William Thompson[12] 2,563
27thJohn H. Jones[13] 2,023Moses Hayden3,117
28thWilliam B. Rochester3,426
29thIsaac Wilson2,093Parmenio Adams2,077
30thAugustus Porter2,091Albert H. Tracy3,516

Note: In Congress both Bucktails and Clintonians aligned with the Democratic-Republicans from the other States. Of the Anti-Bucktails Wood, Ruggles, Strong, Dickinson, Van Rensselaer, Storrs and Russell were old Federalists; Stockholm, Craig, Beck, Cady, Taylor, Gross, Richmond, Lawrence, Marvin, Thompson, Hayden, Adams and Tracy were Clintonians.

Aftermath, special election and contested election

William B. Rochester, re-elected in the 28th District, was appointed Judge of the Eighth Circuit Court on April 21, 1823, and resigned his seat before Congress met. A special election to fill the vacancy was held, and was won by William Woods, of the same faction.

1823 United States House special election result
District colspan="2" D-R/Bucktail colspan="2" D-R/Clintonian
28thWilliam Woods834Daniel Cruger789

The House of Representatives of the 18th United States Congress met for the first time at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on December 1, 1823, and 30 of the representatives, among them Isaac Wilson and William Woods, took their seats on this day. Lawrence took his seat on December 5; Herkimer on December 8; Tracy on December 16; and Morgan on December 18.[14]

A petition on behalf of Parmenio Adams was presented to contest the election of Isaac Wilson in the 29th District. On December 30, 1823, the Committee on Elections submitted its report. They found that in the town of China by mistake 67 votes had been returned for Wilson, although he had polled only 45. They also found that in the town of Attica by mistake 98 votes had been returned for Adams, although he had polled only 93. The Secretary of State of New York, receiving the abovementioned result, issued credentials for Wilson who took his seat when Congress met on December 1. Correcting the mistakes in the China and Attica returns, Adams had 2,072 and Wilson 2,071 votes. Wilson also claimed that he had received 1 vote in Middlebury which was counted as a "blank vote" by the election inspectors because the name printed on the ballot was "partially erased with the stroke of a pen," and that he had received 2 votes in the Town of Stafford and 4 votes in the Town of Byron which were not counted by the election inspectors because the ballots were folded together in pairs.[15] The committee upheld the decision of the election inspectors in both cases, and declared Adams entitled to the seat, winning the election by a single vote.[16] On January 7, 1824, after much debate, the House declared Parmenio Adams entitled to the seat instead of Wilson, and Adams took it.[17]

During this congressional term party lines broke down while four candidates lined up to succeed President James Monroe. At the 1824 United States presidential election, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay and William H. Crawford received electoral votes, but no candidate received a majority. Thus the election was referred to the House of Representatives, to choose among the three most voted candidates: Adams, Jackson and Crawford. Henry Clay supported Adams, so that after the election on February 9, 1825, one month before the end of the term, the members were back-labeled (according to their actual vote) as "Adams-Clay Democratic-Republicans" (Sharpe, Van Wyck, Williams, Herkimer, Cady, Taylor, Martindale, Lawrence, Marvin, Rose, Hayden, Woods, Adams and Tracy), "Jackson Democratic-Republicans" (Morgan and Craig), "Crawford Democratic-Republicans" (Tyson, Cambreleng, Frost, Jenkins, Hoogeboom, Foote, Eaton, Richards, Ten Eyck, Collins, Clark, Dwinell, Litchfield, Day) and "Adams-Clay Federalists" (Wood, Strong, Van Rensselaer, Storrs).

See also

Notes

  1. 7 new seats gained in reapportionment
  2. 14 Adams-Clay, 14 Crawford, 2 Jacksonian
  3. All 4 Adams-Clay
  4. John P. Osborn, of Suffolk Co., assemblyman 1814-15, 1818, 1819 and 1820-21
  5. Jacob Patchen, butcher, of Brooklyn, see A History of the City of Brooklyn by Henry R. Stiles (pages 67ff)
  6. Derick B. Stockholm, publisher of the Republican Herald at Poughkeepsie since 1811; Surrogate of Dutchess Co. 1815-1819
  7. Joseph D. Monell, Recorder of Hudson 1811-1813 and 1815-1821; DA of Columbia Co. 1818-1819; assemblyman 1824; supervisor of Hudson 1830, 1831 and 1847
  8. Nicholas F. Beck (ca. 1796 - June 30, 1830 Albany); Union College graduate 1813; admitted to the bar 1817; City Clerk of Schenectady 1820; Adjutant General of the State Militia 1825-1830 (died in office)
  9. Simeon Ford, DA of Herkimer Co. 1818-23, assemblyman 1820-21 and 1822
  10. Asa Wells, assemblyman 1816-17 and 1818
  11. John Price, of Ontario Co., assemblyman 1814-15 and 1820
  12. William Thompson; assemblyman 1816, 1816-17, 1818, 1819 and 1820-21; Surrogate of Seneca Co. 1815-1819 and 1821-1827
  13. John H. Jones (ca. 1770 - Jan. 4, 1856 Leicester); First Judge of the Genesee County Court 1812-1823. Livingston Co. was separated from Genesee Co. in 1821, and Jones's victorious opponent Hayden was the First Judge of the Livingston County Court.
  14. https://books.google.com/books?id=ArATAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA592 Abridgment of the Debates in Congress
  15. Folding two ballots closely together gives the opportunity for one person to put two ballots in the ballot box without being noticed by the election inspectors. The fraud is easily detected if there are more ballots in the box than voters in the register. The election law at the time expressly forbade the counting of any of the ballots if they were folded together, although it was sometimes claimed that the ballots might have been folded together by mistake, and one vote should be counted instead of the two.
  16. https://books.google.com/books?id=bQ8EfoaTBLsC&pg=PA373 Cases of Contested Elections in Congress 1789 to 1834
  17. https://books.google.com/books?id=ArATAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA617 Abridgment of the Debates in Congress

Sources