April 24-26, 1798 1802 → 6 4 54.4% 45.6% | 6 4 25,040 21,031 | |
The 1800 United States House of Representatives elections in New York were held from April 29 to May 1, 1800, to elect ten U.S. Representatives to represent the State of New York in the United States House of Representatives of the 7th United States Congress.
Contents
Background
Ten U.S. Representatives had been elected in April 1798 to a term in the 6th United States Congress beginning on March 4, 1797. Jonathan N. Havens had died in October 1799, and John Smith was elected to fill the vacancy. Their term would end on March 3, 1801. The congressional elections were held together with the State elections in late April, about ten months before the term would start on March 4, 1801, and about a year and a half before Congress actually met on December 7, 1801.
Congressional districts
On March 27, 1797, the New York State Legislature had re-apportioned the congressional districts. The districts remained the same as at the previous election in April 1798, but two new counties were created in 1799: in the 7th D., Essex Co. was split from Clinton Co.; and in the 10th D., Cayuga Co. was split from Onondaga Co.
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
6 Democratic-Republicans and 4 Federalists were elected. The incumbents Smith, Van Cortlandt, Elmendorf and Bird were re-elected.
Note: The Anti-Federalists called themselves "Republicans." However, at the same time, the Federalists called them "Democrats" which was meant to be pejorative. After some time both terms got more and more confused, and sometimes used together as "Democratic Republicans" which later historians have adopted (with a hyphen) to describe the party from the beginning, to avoid confusion with both the later established and still existing Democratic and Republican parties.
Aftermath and special elections
Dem.-Rep. Thomas Tillotson, who had been elected in the 5th D., was appointed Secretary of State of New York on August 10, 1801, and resigned his seat before Congress met.
Fed. John Bird, who had been re-elected in the 6th D. to a second term, resigned his seat on July 25, 1801, before Congress met.
Special elections to fill the vacancies were held in October 1801, and were won by Theodorus Bailey and John P. Van Ness, both Dem.-Rep. Thus New York was represented by 7 Democratic-Republicans and 3 Federalists in the House of the 7th Congress.
The House of Representatives of the 7th United States Congress met for the first time at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on December 7, 1801, and all ten representatives from New York took their seats on this day.
John P. Van Ness was appointed by President Thomas Jefferson as a major in the militia of the Territory of Columbia and on January 17, 1803, his seat was declared vacant.