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1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts

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Field	Value
election_name	1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
type	presidential
ongoing	no
previous_election	1851 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
previous_year	1851
next_election	1863 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
next_year	1863
election_date	January 9–13, 1857
image_size	x160px
votes_for_election	Majority vote of each house needed to win
1blank	Senate
2blank	Percentage
3blank	House
4blank	Percentage
image1	Charles Sumner by Southworth & Hawes c1850.jpg
nominee1	Charles Sumner
party1	Republican Party (United States)
1data1	unanimous
2data1	unanimous
3data1	333
4data1	96.52%
title	Senator
before_election	Charles Sumner
before_party	Free Soil Party
after_election	Charles Sumner
after_party	Republican Party (United States)

The 1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts was held in January 1857. Incumbent Charles Sumner was re-elected to a second term in office as a member of the Republican Party. Sumner was elected in 1851 by a single vote after twenty-five inconclusive ballots by a coalition of Free-Soil and Democratic legislators. He had since become a founding member of the Massachusetts Republican Party.

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.

During the election, Sumner was still recovering from a brutal attack by a fellow member of Congress, Preston Brooks. He would not permanently return to the Senate until 1859.

Background

On May 22, 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks used a walking cane to attack incumbent Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate. Brooks considered his attack retaliation for a Sumner's speech given two days earlier, in which Sumner fiercely criticized slaveholders including South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, author of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Brook's relative. The beating nearly killed Sumner and contributed to the country's polarization over the issue of slavery.

In the 1856 legislative elections, supporters of the Republican ticket, including Republicans and nominal members of the Know-Nothing Party, won an overwhelming majority in both houses of the General Court, securing Sumner's re-election without opposition. Representatives-elect included 218 Republicans, 5 Fremont Americans, 6 Fillmore Americans, 4 Democrats, and 2 Whigs. 24 seats were left vacant.

House

In a noted contrast

In the House, Sumner received votes from 333 of 345 voting. Some protest votes were cast for conservative former Whig politicians who had become independents or Democrats following the party's dissolution in 1856.

Senate

On January 13, the Senate re-elected Sumner unanimously.

References

(15 Jan 1857). "The Re-election of Mr. Sumner". New York Daily Times.
(21 Jan 1857). "MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE.". Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal.
(5 Nov 1856). "THE ELECTION". The Boston Herald.
(14 Jan 1857). "MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE.". Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal.

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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