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1855 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts

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Field	Value
election_name	1855 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts
type	presidential
country	Massachusetts
ongoing	no
previous_election	1853 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
previous_year	1853
next_election	1859 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
next_year	1859
election_date	January 23 and 31, 1855
image_size	x160px
votes_for_election	40 members of the Massachusetts Senate
396 members of the Massachusetts House
Majority vote of both houses needed to win
1blank	Senate
2blank	Percentage
3blank	House
4blank	Percentage
image1	Colonel Henry Wilson (Massachusetts Senator, U.S. Vice President).jpg
nominee1	Henry Wilson
party1	Know Nothing
1data1	21
2data1	52.5%
3data1	234
4data1	57.8%
title	U.S. senator
before_election	Julius Rockwell
before_party	Whig Party (United States)
after_election	Henry Wilson
after_party	Know Nothing

396 members of the Massachusetts House Majority vote of both houses needed to win

The 1855 United States Senate special election in Massachusetts was held during January 1855. Henry Wilson was elected to fill the remainder of the term left vacant by the resignation of Edward Everett.

Everett had resigned in 1854 over poor health and protest following his failure to vote against the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Prior to the election, Julius Rockwell had been appointed to the seat on an interim basis.

At the time, Massachusetts elected United States senators by a majority vote of each separate house of the Massachusetts General Court, the House and the Senate.

Background

In 1854, the anti-immigration, anti-slavery American Party (better known as Know-Nothings) swept the Massachusetts elections, taking nearly every seat in the legislature.

American Party caucus

Henry Wilson was nominated as the American Party candidate in a legislative caucus on January 13. Most of the House participated; none of the Senators did.

Opposition to Wilson

Following Wilson's endorsement by the caucus, public opposition was aroused against his election. On January 15, a printed circular called for a caucus of "all members in the House who believe in the freedom of debate, who refuse to sanction a high-handed course of political action, and who are opposed to the election of Hon. Henry Wilson to the United States Senate." The opposition caucus met and endorsed Alexander Bullock for Senator.

Election in the House

Much of the debate in the House surrounded Wilson's loyalty to the American Party, or his lack thereof. Wilson had been the Free Soil Party candidate for governor in 1854 but aligned himself with the nativist Know Nothing movement after their sweeping victory, in an effort to strengthen the party's emphasis on opposition to slavery. (The Free Soil Party had been dissolved into the new Republican Party.)

On January 23, the House convened and elected Wilson on the first ballot. His candidacy was then sent to the Senate for ratification.

Election in the Senate

On January 31, the State Senate convened and ratified the House's choice of Wilson.

Aftermath

Wilson joined Samuel Hoar's new anti-slavery Republican Party upon entering the Senate.

References

(22 Jan 1855). "LEGISLATIVE CAUCUS IN MASSACHUSETTS". The Richmond Daily Dispatch.
(13 Jan 1855). "United States Senate". The Boston Herald.
(16 Jan 1855). "Massachusetts Politics". New York Daily Times.
(23 Jan 1855). "Massachusetts Legislature". The Boston Herald.
(1 Feb 1855). "Henry Wilson Elected United States Senator from Massachusetts.". New York Daily Times.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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