Election to the United States House of Representatives in 1882

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The election to the 1882 House of Representatives took place on November 7, 1882. The House of Representatives was elected in the United States . Elections were held between June 5th and October 10th in five states. The election was part of the general election to the 48th United States Congress that year, which also elected a third of US Senators . Since the elections took place around the middle of the term of office of the Republican President Chester A. Arthur , who had been in office since September 1881 ( midterm election ), they were also considered a vote on the previous policy of the president.

At the time of the election, the United States consisted of 38 states. The number of MPs to be elected was 325. The distribution of seats was based on the 1880 census . This also justified the increase in the number of seats in the House of Representatives.

Republicans suffered heavy losses in the elections. Despite the increase in the seats, they could not benefit from it. They even lost 34 seats compared to the elections two years earlier. The Democrats were the big winners of the election. They achieved 196 seats and were thus able to achieve an absolute majority. The United States Greenback Party , which advocated the permanent use of banknotes (paper money) and which had its voters mainly in agriculture, lost eight seats and only got two seats. The reason for the Democratic election victory was primarily the desire of the Republicans to preserve the system of appointments in the public service that existed at the time. According to this system, all offices were filled by the party in power. The Democrats advocated reform, which was implemented in 1883 with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act . As a result, professional qualifications for an administrative office should be more important than political party affiliation. The Republicans' long adherence to the old system was viewed by voters as support for corruption. It was too late for the party to give in shortly before the election.

Only men were entitled to vote and eligible for election. Women were still banned from voting at the federal level until 1920. In the southern states in particular, the right to vote was restricted by laws that linked the right to vote to a certain tax revenue. As a result, poor whites, but above all many African-Americans, were excluded from voting.

Election result

Total: 325 (293)

Distribution of seats
   
A total of 325 seats
  • Dem .: 196
  • Rep .: 117
  • Otherwise: 12

The results of the last election two years earlier are in brackets. Changes during the legislative period that do not affect the elections as such are not included in these figures, but are noted in the article on the 48th Congress in the section on the members of the House of Representatives under the relevant names of the representatives. The same applies to elections in states that joined the Union after the beginning of the legislative period. As a result, the sources sometimes contain different information, as changes during the legislative period were sometimes incorporated into the figures and sometimes not.

See also

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