1810 United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania

Summary

Elections to the United States House of Representatives were held in Pennsylvania on October 9, 1810, for the 12th Congress. The Federalists were in decline in Pennsylvania at this time. In six of the eleven districts there were no Federalist candidates.

United States House of Representatives elections in Pennsylvania, 1810

← 1808 October 9, 1810 1812 →

All 18 Pennsylvania seats to the United States House of Representatives
  Majority party Minority party
 
Party Democratic-Republican Federalist
Last election 16 2
Seats won 17 1
Seat change Increase 1 Decrease 1

Background edit

Eighteen Representatives had been elected in 1808, 16 Democratic-Republicans and 2 Federalists. One Democratic-Republican resigned and was replaced by another Representative from the same party, so that there was still a 16-2 division. Four of the Democratic-Republicans and two of the Federalists were "quids", a short-lived alliance of moderate Democratic-Republicans and Federalists. That was the last year in which the quids as a movement existed.

Congressional districts edit

Pennsylvania was divided into 11 districts, of which four were plural districts with 11 Representatives between them, with the remaining 7 Representatives elected from single-member districts. The districts were:

Note: Many of these counties covered much larger areas than they do today, having since been divided into smaller counties

Election results edit

Fifteen incumbents (14 Democratic-Republicans and 1 Federalist) ran for re-election, of whom ten were re-elected. The incumbents John Ross (DR) of the 2nd district, Robert Jenkins (F) of the 3rd district and Matthias Richards (DR) also of the 3rd district did not run for re-election. Two seats changed from Federalist to Democratic-Republican control and one seat changed from Democratic-Republican to Federalist control, for a net loss of 1 seat by the Federalists. In the 1st district, there was a split between three "New School" and one "Old School" Democratic-Republicans, which split the Democratic-Republican vote enough to allow one of the three seats in that district to be won by a Federalist.

1810 United States House election results
District Democratic-Republican Federalist
1st
3 seats
Adam Seybert[1] (I) 6,276 19.8% James Milnor 4,359 13.7%
William Anderson[1] (I) 6,218 19.6% Thomas Truxton 4,343 13.7%
John Porter[1] (I) 3,143 9.9% Thomas Dick 4,269 13.4%
Robert McMullin[2] 3,127 9.9%
2nd
3 seats
Robert Brown (I) 5,444 19.1% William Milnor (I) 4,132 14.5%
Jonathan Roberts 5,409 19.0% Levi Paulding 4,033 14.2%
William Rodman 5,377 18.9% William Latimere 3,955 13.9%
Charles Miner 102 0.4%
3rd
3 seats
Joseph Lefever 6,616 18.4% Daniel Hiester[3] (I) 5,770 16.0%
Roger Davis 6,612 18.3% Samuel Bethel 5,437 15.1%
John M. Hyneman 6,201 17.2% Mark J. Biddle 5,410 15.0%
4th
2 seats
David Bard (I) 5,436 50.0%
Robert Whitehill (I) 5,429 50.0%
5th George Smith (I) 3,576 100%
6th William Crawford (I) 2,332 56.6% David Cassat 1,790 43.4%
7th William Piper 1,428 58.5%
John Rea (I) 1,015 41.5%
8th William Findley[4] (I) 2,735 60.9%
John Kirkpatrick 1,757 39.1%
9th John Smilie 1,401 100%
10th Aaron Lyle (I) 1,344 70.4% Thomas L. Birch 564 29.6%
11th Abner Lacock 2,897 51.0%
Alexander Tannehill 2,455 43.2%
Samuel Smith (I) 326 5.7%

Post-Election edit

All 18 Representatives elected in October appeared in Washington at the start of the 12th Congress. John Smilie (DR) of the 9th district died December 30, 1812.[5] Abner Lacock (DR) of the 11th district resigned February 24, 1813 after being elected to the Senate. Both had been re-elected to the 13th Congress, and both districts were left vacant for the remainder of the 12th Congress.

References edit

  • Electoral data and information on districts are from the Wilkes University Elections Statistics Project
  1. ^ a b c New School
  2. ^ Old School
  3. ^ Changed parties
  4. ^ Quid
  5. ^ "12th Congress membership roster" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 13, 2012. Retrieved December 15, 2012.