United States House of Representatives elections, 1800

Elections to the United States House of Representatives were held in 1800, concurrently with the 1800 presidential election, in which Vice President Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic Republican, defeated incumbent President John Adams, a Federalist.

The elections, to the 7th United States Congress, resulted in the Democratic-Republicans picking up 22 seats from the Federalists. This brought the Democratic-Republicans to a broad majority of 68 seats, with the Federalists retaining 38 seats. Many state legislatures also changed to Democratic-Republican control, voting in Democratic-Republicans to the Senate.

The victory of Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans can be partially attributed to unpopular Adams administration policies, including the Alien and Sedition Acts, which curtailed the Bill of Rights guarantees of freedom of speech and the press.

The differences between Federalist views in favor of a strong national government and Democratic-Republican views on the primacy of the states played a prominent role in the election - taxation became an issue as Southerners and Westerners rejected federal taxes levied on property.

Overall results

Elections by state

Unlike modern day House elections, each state held its election on different days. The table below shows the date of each state's election in chronological order and the makeup of the state contingents before and after the elections. “Und.” is short for “undecided”, for races in which no candidate won the seat outright, forcing a second election.

See also

• 7th United States Congress
• United States presidential election, 1800

External links

• http://clerk.house.gov/art_history/house_history/index.html
• Analysis of the 1800 House elections from an OurCampaigns blog