April 28-30, 1821 1822 → 19 8 | 21 6 2 2 | |
The 1821 United States House of Representatives elections in New York were held from April 24 to 26, 1821, to elect 27 U.S. Representatives to represent the State of New York in the United States House of Representatives of the 17th United States Congress.
Contents
Background
27 U.S. Representatives had been elected in April 1818 to a term in the 16th United States Congress beginning on March 4, 1819, and ending on March 3, 1821. The previous congressional elections were held usually in even-numbered years, about ten months before the term would start on March 4 of the next year, and about a year and a half before Congress actually met in the following December. This time the congressional elections were moved a year forward, and were held together with the State elections in late April 1821, after the congressional term already had begun, but about half a year before Congress actually met on December 3, 1821.
Congressional districts
Except for the split of the 21st District, the geographical area of the congressional districts remained the same as at the previous elections in 1818. Five new counties had been created. Hamilton Co. was split from Montgomery Co. inside the 14th District. Oswego Co. was created from parts of Oneida and Onondaga counties, but the parts remained in their previous congressional districts. On March 9, 1821, the New York State Legislature divided the 21st District in two districts: Ontario Co. and the newly created Monroe Co. remained as the 21st District; the remainder became the new 22nd District, including the new counties of Erie and Livingston.
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
15 Bucktails and 12 Clintonian/Federalists were declared elected. Cadwallader D. Colden (Fed.) successfully contested the election of Peter Sharpe (Buckt.), so that New York was represented by 19 Democratic-Republicans and 8 Federalists in the 17th Congress. The incumbents Wood, Van Rensselaer, Dickinson, Taylor, Pitcher and Tracy were re-elected; the incumbents Gross, Monell, Hall, Richmond and Allen (all Clintonians) were defeated.
Note: It is difficult to ascertain the party affiliation of some of the fusion candidates: At this time the Democratic-Republican Party was already split into two opposing factions: on one side, the supporters of DeWitt Clinton and his Erie Canal project; on the other side, the Bucktails (including the Tammany Hall organization in New York City), led by Martin Van Buren. At the same time, the Federalist Party had already begun to disintegrate, and many of its former members joined either the Bucktails or the Clintonians. However, in Congress both Bucktails and Clintonians aligned with the Democratic-Republicans from the other States. Wood, Colden, Patterson, Ruggles, Van Rensselaer, Dickinson, Kirkland and Sterling were Federalists; Wilkin, McCarty, Taylor, Gross, Gebhard, Monell, Hall, Richmond, Camp, Allen and Tracy were Clintonians.
Aftermath, special elections and contested election
Selah Tuthill, elected in the 6th District, died on September 7, 1821, before Congress met. A special election to fill the vacancy was held from November 6 to 8, and was won by Charles Borland, Jr.
The House of Representatives of the 17th United States Congress met for the first time at the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on December 3, 1821, and 24 of the representatives took their seats. Ruggles and Sterling took their seats later, and Peter Sharpe did not appear.
On December 6, 1821, a petition on behalf of Cadwallader D. Colden was presented to contest the election of Peter Sharpe in the 1st District. On December 11, the Committee on Elections submitted its report. They found that in the town of Brookhaven 220 votes had been returned for Cadwallader D. Colden, but the final letter of the name "n" had been misread as an "r" when the election certificate was viewed in the office of the Secretary of State of New York. They also found that in the town of Hempstead 395 votes were returned for "Cadwallader Colden" by mistake, the Queens County Clerk having omitted the middle initial although all these votes had in fact been given for "Cadwallader D. Colden". The Secretary of State of New York, receiving the abovementioned result, issued credentials for Sharpe who never took or claimed the seat. On December 12, the House declared Colden entitled to the seat, and he took it.
On January 14, 1822, Solomon Van Rensselaer resigned his seat to accept an appointment as Postmaster of Albany to replace Solomon Southwick whose financial affairs were in such a messy state that he had defaulted the post-office monies. To fill the vacancy, a special election was held from February 25 to 27, and was won by Stephen Van Rensselaer defeating Ex-Postmaster Southwick. Stephen Van Renssealaer took his seat on March 12, 1822.