To install click the Add extension button. That's it.

The source code for the WIKI 2 extension is being checked by specialists of the Mozilla Foundation, Google, and Apple. You could also do it yourself at any point in time.

4,5
Kelly Slayton
Congratulations on this excellent venture… what a great idea!
Alexander Grigorievskiy
I use WIKI 2 every day and almost forgot how the original Wikipedia looks like.
Live Statistics
English Articles
Improved in 24 Hours
Added in 24 Hours
Languages
Recent
Show all languages
What we do. Every page goes through several hundred of perfecting techniques; in live mode. Quite the same Wikipedia. Just better.
.
Leo
Newton
Brights
Milds

1820–21 United States Senate elections

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1820–21 United States Senate elections

← 1818 & 1819 Dates vary by state 1822 & 1823 →

15 of the 46 seats in the United States Senate (plus special elections)
24 seats needed for a majority
  Majority party Minority party
 
Party Democratic-Republican Federalist
Last election 30 seats 9 seats
Seats before 37 9
Seats won 11 1
Seats after 38 5
Seat change Increase 1 Decrease 4
Seats up 10 5

Results:
     Dem-Republican hold      Dem-Republican gain
     Federalist hold      Legislature Failed To Elect

Majority Party before election


Democratic-Republican

Elected Majority Party


Democratic-Republican

The 1820–21 United States Senate elections were held on various dates in various states, corresponding with James Monroe's landslide re-election. As these U.S. Senate elections were prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913, senators were chosen by state legislatures. Senators were elected over a wide range of time throughout 1820 and 1821, and a seat may have been filled months late or remained vacant due to legislative deadlock.[1] In these elections, terms were up for the senators in Class 1.

The Democratic-Republican Party gain one-to-five seats (in the general and special elections), assuming almost complete control of the Senate.

YouTube Encyclopedic

  • 1/5
    Views:
    4 822 992
    376
    3 689
    24 929
    48 554 388
  • Reconstruction and 1876: Crash Course US History #22
  • Researcher Talk: Electing the Senate: Indirect Democracy Before the Seventeenth Amendment
  • How Democratic is the US Constitution? - Election 2020: UC Berkeley Big Ideas
  • 2018 Winter Lecture Series - The Fateful Compromise of 1850
  • The American Civil War - OverSimplified (Part 1)

Transcription

Episode 21: Reconstruction Hi, I’m John Green, this is Crash Course U.S. History and huzzah! The Civil War is over! The slaves are free! Huzzah! That one hit me in the head? It’s very dangerous, Crash Course. So when you say, “Don’t aim at a person,” that includes myself? The roller coaster only goes up from here, my friends. Huzzah! Mr. Green, Mr. Green, what about the epic failure of Reconstruction? Oh, right. Stupid Reconstruction always ruining everything intro So after the Civil War ended, the United States had to reintegrate both a formerly slave population and a formerly rebellious population back into the country, which is a challenge that we might’ve met, except Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and we were left with Andrew “I am the Third Worst President Ever” Johnson. I’m sorry, Abe, but you don’t get to be in the show anymore. So, Lincoln’s whole post-war idea was to facilitate reunion and reconciliation, and Andrew Johnson’s guiding Reconstruction principle was that the South never had a right to secede in the first place. Also, because he was himself a Southerner, he resented all the elites in the South who had snubbed him, AND he was also a racist who didn’t think that blacks should have any role in Reconstruction. TRIFECTA! So between 1865 and 1867, the so-called period of Presidential Reconstruction, Johnson appointed provisional governors and ordered them to call state conventions to establish new all-white governments. And in their 100% whiteness and oppression of former slaves, those new governments looked suspiciously like the old confederate governments they had replaced. And what was changing for the former slaves? Well, in some ways, a lot. Like, Fiske and Howard universities were established, as well as many primary and secondary schools, thanks in part to The Freedman’s Bureau, which only lasted until 1870, but had the power to divide up confiscated and abandoned confederate land for former slaves. And this was very important because to most slaves, land ownership was the key to freedom, and many felt like they’d been promised land by the Union Army. Like, General Sherman’s Field Order 15, promised to distribute land in 40 acre plots to former slaves. But that didn’t happen, either through the Freedman’s Bureau or anywhere else. Instead, President Johnson ordered all land returned to its former owners. So the South remained largely agricultural with the same people owning the same land, and in the end, we ended up with sharecropping. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. The system of sharecropping replaced slavery in many places throughout the South. Landowners would provide housing to the sharecroppers--no, Thought Bubble, not quite that nice. There ya go--also tools and seed, and then the sharecroppers received, get this, a share of their crop--usually between a third and a half, with the price for that harvest often set by the landowner. Freed blacks got to control their work, and plantation owners got a steady workforce that couldn’t easily leave, because they had little opportunity to save money and make the big capital investments in, like, land or tools. By the late 1860s, poor white farmers were sharecropping as well--in fact, by the Great Depression, most sharecroppers were white. And while sharecropping certainly wasn’t slavery, it did result in a quasi-serfdom that tied workers to land they didn’t own--more or less the opposite of Jefferson’s ideal of the small, independent farmer. So, the Republicans in Congress weren’t happy that this reconstructed south looked so much like the pre-Civil War south, so they took the lead in reconstruction after 1867. Radical Republicans felt the war had been fought for equal rights and wanted to see the powers of the national government expanded. Few were as radical as Thaddeus “Tommy Lee Jones” Stephens who wanted to take away land from the Southern planters and give it to the former slaves, but rank-and-file Republicans were radical enough to pass the Civil Rights Bill, which defined persons born in the United States as citizens and established nationwide equality before the law regardless of race. Andrew Johnson immediately vetoed the law, claiming that trying to protect the rights of African Americans amounted to discrimination against white people, which so infuriated Republicans that Congress did something it had never done before in all of American history. They overrode the Presidential veto with a 2/3rds majority and the Civil Rights Act became law. So then Congress really had its dander up and decided to amend the Constitution with the 14th amendment, which defines citizenship, guarantees equal protection, and extends the rights in the Bill of Rights to all the states (sort of). The amendment had almost no Democratic support, but it also didn’t need any, because there were almost no Democrats in Congress on account of how Congress had refused to seat the representatives from the “new” all-white governments that Johnson supported. And that’s how we got the 14th amendment, arguably the most important in the whole Constitution. Thanks, Thought Bubble. Oh, straight to the mystery document today? Alright. The rules here are simple. I guess the author of the Mystery Document and try not to get shocked. Alright let’s see what we’ve got today. Sec. 1. Be it ordained by the police jury of the parish of St. Landry, That no negro shall be allowed to pass within the limits of said parish without special permit in writing from his employer. Sec. 4. . . . Every negro is required to be in the regular service of some white person, or former owner, who shall be held responsible for the conduct of said negro.. Sec. 6. . . . No negro shall be permitted to preach, exhort, or otherwise declaim to congregations of colored people, without a special permission in writing from the president of the police jury. . . . Gee, Stan, I wonder if the President of the Police Jury was white. I actually know this one. It is a Black Code, which was basically legal codes where they just replaced the word “slave” with the word “negro.” And this code shows just how unwilling white governments were to ensure the rights of new, free citizens. I would celebrate not getting shocked, but now I am depressed. So, okay, in 1867, again over Johnson’s veto, Congress passed the Reconstruction Act, which divided the south into 5 military districts and required each state to create a new government, one that included participation of black men. Those new governments had to ratify the 14th amendment if they wanted to get back into the union. Radical Reconstruction had begun. So, in 1868, Andrew Johnson was about as electable in the U.S. as Jefferson Davis, and sure enough he didn’t win. Instead, the 1868 election was won by Republican and former Union general Ulysses S. Grant. But Grant’s margin of victory was small enough that Republicans were like, “Man, we would sure win more elections if black people could vote.” Which is something you hear Republicans say all the time these days. So Congressional Republicans pushed the 15th Amendment, which prohibited states from denying men the right to vote based on race, but not based on gender or literacy or whether your grandfather could vote. So states ended up with a lot of leeway when it came to denying the franchise to African Americans, which of course they did. So here we have the federal government dictating who can vote, and who is and isn’t a citizen of a state, and establishing equality under the law--even local laws. And this is a really big deal in American history, because the national government became, rather than a threat to individual liberty, “the custodian of freedom,” as Radical Republican Charles Sumner put it. So but with this legal protection, former slaves began to exercise their rights. They participated in the political process by direct action, such as staging sit-ins to integrate street-cars, by voting in elections, and by holding office. Most African Americans were Republicans at the time, and because they could vote and were a large part of the population, the Republican party came to dominate politics in the South, just like today, except totally different. Now, Southern mythology about the age of radical Reconstruction is exemplified by Gone with the Wind, which of course tells the story of northern Republican dominance and corruption by southern Republicans. Fortune seeking northern carpetbaggers, seen here, as well as southern turncoat scalawags dominated politics and all of the African American elected leaders were either corrupt or puppets or both. Yeah, well, like the rest of Gone with the Wind, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. There were about 2,000 African Americans who held office during Reconstruction, and the vast majority of them were not corrupt. Consider for example the not-corrupt and amazingly-named Pinckney B.S. Pinchback, who from 1872 to 1873 served very briefly in Louisiana as America’s first black governor. And went on to be a senator and a member of the House of Representatives. By the way, America’s second African American governor, Douglas Wilder of Virginia was elected in 1989. Having African American officeholders was a huge step forward in term of ensuring the rights of African Americans because it meant that there would be black juries and less discrimination in state and local governments when it came to providing basic services. But in the end, Republican governments failed in the South. There were important achievements, especially a school system that, while segregated, did attempt to educate both black and white children. And even more importantly, they created a functioning government where both white and African American citizens could participate. According to one white South Carolina lawyer, “We have gone through one of the most remarkable changes in our relations to each other that has been known, perhaps, in the history of the world.” That’s a little hyperbolic, but we are America after all. (libertage) It’s true that corruption was widespread, but it was in the North, too. I mean, we’re talking about governments. And that’s not why Reconstruction really ended: It ended because 1. things like schools and road repair cost money, which meant taxes, which made Republican governments very unpopular because Americans hate taxes, and 2. White southerners could not accept African Americans exercising basic civil rights, holding office or voting. And for many, the best way to return things to the way they were before reconstruction was through violence. Especially after 1867, much of the violence directed toward African Americans in the South was politically motivated. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 and it quickly became a terrorist organization, targeting Republicans, both black and white, beating and murdering men and women in order to intimidate them and keep them from voting. The worst act of violence was probably the massacre at Colfax, Louisiana where hundreds of former slaves were murdered. And between intimidation and emerging discriminatory voting laws, fewer black men voted, which allowed white Democrats to take control of state governments in the south, and returned white Democratic congressional delegations to Washington. These white southern politicians called themselves “Redeemers” because they claimed to have redeemed the south from northern republican corruption and black rule. Now, it’s likely that the South would have fallen back into Democratic hands eventually, but the process was aided by Northern Republicans losing interest in Reconstruction. In 1873, the U.S. fell into yet another not-quite-Great economic depression and northerners lost the stomach to fight for the rights of black people in the south, which in addition to being hard was expensive. So by 1876 the supporters of reconstruction were in full retreat and the Democrats were resurgent, especially in the south. And this set up one of the most contentious elections in American history. The Democrats nominated New York Governor (and NYU Law School graduate) Samuel Tilden. The Republicans chose Ohio governor (and Kenyon College alumnus) Rutherford B. Hayes. One man who’d gone to Crash Course writer Raoul Meyer’s law school. And another who’d gone to my college, Kenyon. Now, if the election had been based on facial hair, as elections should be, there would’ve been no controversy, but sadly we have an electoral college here in the United States, and in 1876 there were disputed electoral votes in South Carolina, Louisiana, and, of course, Florida. Now you might remember that in these situations, there is a constitutional provision that says Congress should decide the winner, but Congress, shockingly, proved unable to accomplish something. So they appointed a 15 man Electoral Commission--a Super-Committee, if you will. And there were 8 Republicans on that committee and 7 Democrats, so you will never guess who won. Kenyon College’s own Rutherford B. Hayes. Go Lords and Ladies! And yes, that is our mascot. Shut up. Anyway in order to get the Presidency and win the support of the supercommittee, Hayes’ people agreed to cede control of the South to the Democrats and to stop meddling in Southern affairs and also to build a transcontinental railroad through Texas. This is called the Bargain of 1877 because historians are so good at naming things and it basically killed Reconstruction. Without any more federal troops in Southern states and with control of Southern legislatures firmly in the hands of white democrats the states were free to go back to restricting the freedom of black people, which they did. Legislatures passed Jim Crow laws that limited African American’s access to public accommodations and legal protections. States passed laws that took away black people’s right to vote and social and economic mobility among African Americans in the south declined precipitously. However, for a brief moment, the United States was more democratic than it had ever been before. And an entire segment of the population that had no impact on politics before was now allowed to participate. And for the freedmen who lived through it, that was a monumental change, and it would echo down to the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, sometimes called the second reconstruction. But we’re gonna end this episode on a downer, as we are wont to do here at Crash Course US History because I want to point out a lesser-known legacy of Reconstruction. The Reconstruction amendments and laws that were passed granted former slaves political freedom and rights, especially the vote, and that was critical. But to give them what they really wanted and needed, plots of land that would make them economically independent, would have required confiscation, and that violation of property rights was too much for all but the most radical Republicans. And that question of what it really means to be “free” in a system of free market capitalism has proven very complicated indeed. I’ll see you next week. Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our script supervisor is Meredith Danko. The associate producer is Danica Johnson. The show is written by my high school history teacher, Raoul Meyer, and myself. And our graphics team is Thought Café. Every week there’s a new caption for the libertage. You can suggest those in comments where you can also ask questions about today’s video that will be answered by our team of historians. Thank you for watching Crash Course. Don’t forget to subscribe. And as we say in my hometown, don’t forget to be awesome. reconstruction -

Results summary

Senate party division, 17th Congress (1821–1823)

  • Majority party: Democratic-Republican (39–43)
  • Minority party: Federalist (4)
  • Vacant: (3–1)
  • Total seats: 46–48

Change in composition

Before the elections

Composition after the June 13 and 14, 1820 elections in Maine.

DR1
Maine
New seat
DR2 DR3
DR13 DR12 DR11 DR10 DR9 DR8 DR7 DR6 DR5 DR4
DR14 DR15 DR16 DR17 DR18 DR19 DR20 DR21 DR22 DR23
Majority → DR24
DR33
N.Y.
Ran
DR32
N.J.
Ran
DR31
Miss.
Ran
DR30
Md.
Ran
DR29
Maine
New seat
Ran
DR28
Ind.
Ran
DR27 DR26 DR25
DR34
Ohio
Ran
DR35
Va.
Ran
DR36
Pa.
Unknown
DR37
Tenn.
Unknown
F9
Vt.
Retired
F8
Del.
Retired
F7
R.I.
Unknown
F6
Mass.
Ran
F5
Conn.
Ran
F4
F1 F2 F3

Result of the general elections

DR1 DR2 DR3
DR13 DR12 DR11 DR10 DR9 DR8 DR7 DR6 DR5 DR4
DR14 DR15 DR16 DR17 DR18 DR19 DR20 DR21 DR22 DR23
Majority → DR24
DR33
Va.
Re-elected
DR32
Ohio
Re-elected
DR31
Miss.
Re-elected
DR30
Md.
Re-elected
DR29
Maine
Re-elected
DR28
Ind.
Re-elected
DR27 DR26 DR25
DR34
N.J.
Hold
DR35
N.Y.
Hold
DR36
Conn.
Gain
DR37
R.I.
Gain
DR38
Vt.
Gain
V1
Pa.
DR loss
V2
Tenn.
DR loss
V3
Del.
F loss
F5
Mass.
Re-elected
F4
F1 F2 F3

Result of the special elections in the next Congress

DR1
Mo.
New seat
DR2
Mo.
New seat
DR3 DR4
Ga.
Hold
DR14 DR13 DR12 DR11 DR10 DR9 DR8 DR7 DR6 DR5
DR15 DR16 DR17 DR18 DR19 DR20 DR21 DR22 DR23 DR24
Majority → DR25
DR34 DR33 DR32 DR31 DR30 DR29 DR28 DR27 DR26
DR35 DR36 DR37 DR38 DR39 DR40 DR41
Pa.
Gain
DR42
Tenn.
Gain
V1 F5
F1 F2 F3 F4
Key:
DR# Democratic-Republican
F# Federalist
V# Vacant

Race summaries

Bold states link to specific election articles.

Special elections during the preceding Congress

In these special elections, the winner was elected during 1820 or before March 4, 1821; ordered by election date.

State Incumbent Results Candidates
Senator Party Electoral
history
New York
(Class 3)
Vacant Legislature had failed to elect in 1818/1819.
Previous incumbent was elected January 8, 1820.
Federalist gain.
Massachusetts
(Class 1)
Prentiss Mellen Federalist 1820 (special) Incumbent resigned to become Chief Justice of Maine.
New senator elected June 12, 1820.
Winner was also elected to the next term.
Federalist hold.
Maine
(Class 1)
New state New senator elected June 13, 1820 on the second ballot.
Winner was also elected to the next term.
Democratic-Republican gain.
First ballot:

Second ballot:
  • Green tickY John Holmes (Democratic-Republican) 95 votes
  • Joshua Wingate Jr. 79 votes
Maine
(Class 2)
New senator elected June 14, 1820.
Democratic-Republican gain.
Mississippi
(Class 1)
Walter Leake Democratic-
Republican
1817 Incumbent resigned May 15, 1820.
New senator elected August 30, 1820.
Winner was also elected to the next term.
Democratic-Republican hold.
Kentucky
(Class 3)
William Logan Democratic-
Republican
1818 Incumbent resigned May 28, 1820, to run for Governor of Kentucky.
New senator elected October 19, 1820.
Democratic-Republican hold.
Rhode Island
(Class 2)
James Burrill Jr. Federalist 1816 Incumbent died December 25, 1820.
New senator elected January 9, 1821.
Democratic-Republican gain.

Races leading to the next Congress

In these general elections, the winner was seated on March 4, 1821; ordered by state.

All of the elections involved the Class 1 seats.

State Incumbent Results Candidates
Senator Party Electoral
history
Connecticut Samuel Dana Federalist 1810 (special)
1814
Unknown if incumbent retired or lost re-election.
New senator elected March 4, 1821.
Democratic-Republican gain.
Delaware Outerbridge Horsey Federalist 1810 (special)
1815
Incumbent retired.
Legislature failed to elect.
Federalist loss.
A Democratic-Republican was later elected in 1822.
Indiana James Noble Democratic-
Republican
1816 Incumbent re-elected in 1821.
Maine John Holmes Democratic-
Republican
1820 Incumbent re-elected January 31, 1821.
Maryland William Pinkney Democratic-
Republican
1819 (special) Incumbent re-elected in 1820 or 1821.
Massachusetts Elijah H. Mills Federalist 1820 (special) Incumbent re-elected in 1820.[2]
Mississippi David Holmes Democratic-
Republican
1820 (special) Incumbent re-elected in 1820 or 1821.
New Jersey James J. Wilson Democratic-
Republican
1815 Incumbent lost re-election.
New senator elected November 11, 1820.[3]
Democratic-Republican hold.
Incumbent then resigned January 8, 1821, and winner was appointed to finish the term.
New York Nathan Sanford Democratic-
Republican
1809 Incumbent lost re-election.
New senator elected February 6, 1821.
Democratic-Republican hold.
Ohio Benjamin Ruggles Democratic-
Republican
1815 Incumbent re-elected in 1820 or 1821.
Pennsylvania Jonathan Roberts Democratic-
Republican
1814 (special)
1814
Legislature failed to elect.
Democratic-Republican loss.
New senator would later be elected in 1821.
Rhode Island William Hunter Federalist 1811 (special)
1814
Unknown if incumbent retired or lost re-election.
New senator elected in 1820 or 1821.
Democratic-Republican gain.
Tennessee John H. Eaton Democratic-
Republican
1818 (Appointed)
1819 (special)
Legislature failed to elect
Democratic-Republican loss.
New senator would later be elected September 27, 1821, see below.[4]
Vermont Isaac Tichenor Federalist 1796 (special)
1796
1797 (Resigned)
1814
Incumbent retired.
New senator elected in 1821.
Democratic-Republican gain.
Virginia James Barbour Democratic-
Republican
1814 (special)
1814
Incumbent re-elected in 1821.

Special elections during the next Congress

In this special election, the winner was elected in 1821 after March 4; ordered by election date.

State Incumbent Results Candidates
Senator Party Electoral
history
Missouri
(Class 1)
New state New senator elected August 10, 1821.
Democratic-Republican gain.
Missouri
(Class 3)
New senator elected August 10, 1821.
Democratic-Republican gain.
Tennessee
(Class 1)
Vacant Legislature had failed to elect.
New senator re-elected late September 27, 1821.[4]
Democratic-Republican gain.
Georgia
(Class 2)
Freeman Walker Democratic-
Republican
1819 (special) Incumbent resigned August 6, 1821.
New senator elected November 10, 1821.
Democratic-Republican hold.
Pennsylvania
(Class 1)
Vacant Legislature had failed to elect.
New senator elected December 10, 1821.
Democratic-Republican gain.

Connecticut

Delaware

Georgia (special)

Indiana

Kentucky (special)

Maine

John Holmes (Democratic-Republican) was elected as one of the new states first pair of senators whose terms began with June 13, 1820, statehood. He was elected to the class 1 seat's short term, which ended March 3, 1821, and was re-elected January 31, 1821, to the term starting March 4, 1821.

John Chandler (Democratic-Republican) as elected to the class 2 seat's long term, and his term would end March 3, 1823.

Maryland

1821 United States Senate election in Maryland
← 1819 December 7, 1821 1822 →

80 members of the Maryland General Assembly
 
Candidate William Pinkney
Party Democratic-Republican
Legislative vote -
Percentage -%

William Pinkney won election by an unknown number of votes, for the Class 1 seat.[5]

Massachusetts

Massachusetts (regular)

Massachusetts (special)

Mississippi

Mississippi (regular)

Mississippi (special)

Missouri

New Jersey

New York

New York (regular)

New York (special)

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Rhode Island (regular)

Rhode Island (special)

Tennessee

Tennessee (regular)

Tennessee (special)

Vermont

Virginia

See also

Notes

References

  1. ^ "17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Direct Election of U.S. Senators (1913)". National Archives and Records Administration. February 8, 2022.
  2. ^ a b "Massachusetts 1820 U.S. Senate". A New Nation Votes. Tufts University Digital Collections and Archives. November 11, 1820. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
  3. ^ a b c "New Jersey 1820 U.S. Senate". A New Nation Votes. Tufts University Digital Collections and Archives. November 11, 1820. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
  4. ^ a b "EATON, John Henry, (1790 - 1856)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved June 9, 2015.
  5. ^ "Our Campaigns - MD US Senate Race - Dec 07, 1821". www.ourcampaigns.com. Retrieved 2022-11-05.
This page was last edited on 13 February 2024, at 17:43
Basis of this page is in Wikipedia. Text is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported License. Non-text media are available under their specified licenses. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. WIKI 2 is an independent company and has no affiliation with Wikimedia Foundation.