1794 United States House of Representatives elections in New York

The 1794 United States House of Representatives elections in New York were held on December 12, 1794, to elect ten United States Representatives to represent the State of New York in the United States House of Representatives of the 4th United States Congress.

United States House of Representatives elections in New York, 1794

← 1793 December 12, 1794 1796 →

All 10 New York seats to the United States House of Representatives
  Majority party Minority party
 
Party Democratic-Republican Federalist
Last election 3 7
Seats won 6 4
Seat change Increase 3 Decrease 3
Popular vote 11,694 11,921
Percentage 49.5% 50.5%

Background

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Ten U.S. Representatives had been elected in January 1793 to a term in the 3rd United States Congress beginning on March 4, 1793. One representative, Silas Talbot (10th D.), had accepted in June 1794 an appointment to the United States Navy, and thus vacated his seat. No special election was called to fill the vacancy. The other nine representatives' term would end on March 3, 1795.

Congressional districts

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On January 27, 1789, the New York State Legislature had divided the State of New York into six congressional districts which were not numbered.[1] On December 18, 1792, the Legislature divided the State into ten districts, which were still not numbered, taking into account the new counties created in 1791. The congressional districts remained at this election the same as at the previous election, only inside the Tenth District a new county, Onondaga, was created in 1794.

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

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6 Democratic-Republicans and 4 Federalists were elected. Thomas Tredwell, the incumbent from the 1st District, had moved to Plattsburgh and ran for re-election in the 7th District, but was defeated by the local incumbent John E. Van Alen. Of the other incumbents, Watts was defeated; Glen, Gilbert, Bailey and Van Cortlandt were re-elected; and Peter Van Gaasbeck and James Gordon did not run for re-election.

1794 United States House election result
District Democratic-Republican Federalist Democratic-Republican Federalist Democratic-Republican
1 Jonathan Nicoll Havens 815 Samuel Jones 494 Whitehead Cornwell 554 John Smith 251
2 Edward Livingston 1,843 John Watts 1,638
3 Philip Van Cortlandt 992 Richard Morris 972
4 John Hathorn 1,519 Conrad E. Elmendorf 583 Peter Gansevoort 2 William Thompson 41
5 Theodorus Bailey 1,449 David Brooks 1,090
6 John Bay 441 Ezekiel Gilbert 1,168 Mathew Adgate[2] 419
7 Thomas Tredwell 298 John E. Van Alen 1,109
8 Abraham Yates 20 Henry Glen 677 John Tayler 19 James Fairlie 4
9 John Williams 1,297 Ebenezer Russell 1,079 Alexander Webster 305
10 John Winn 1,426 William Cooper 2,535 Jonathan Fitch 40 James Cochran 535

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

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The House of Representatives of the 4th United States Congress met for the first time at Congress Hall in Philadelphia on December 7, 1795, and nine of the ten representatives took their seats on this day. Only John Hathorn arrived late, and took his seat on December 17.[3]

Notes

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  1. ^ The numbers which are used nowadays to describe these districts at this time derive from the numbers of the districts officially introduced in 1797, considering the sequence of the districts in the official listing and the approximate geographical equivalence.
  2. ^ Matthew Adgate (1737-1818), assemblyman 1780-85, 1788-89, 1791, 1792-95, delegate from Columbia Co. to the State convention which adopted the U.S. Constitution in 1788 and voted against it
  3. ^ Abridgment of the Debates in Congress from 1789 to 1856 (Vol. I; pages 604 and 608)

Sources

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