Members of the House of Representatives meet to elect a Speaker

Representatives met in Washington, DC, to elect a Speaker of the House for the new session of Congress.  John Sherman of Ohio defeated Elisha Grow of Pennsylvania for the Republican nomination, while Thomas S. Bocock of Virginia secured the support of the Administration Democrats.  The first ballot of the election proper was inconclusive.  Few members suspected that  the new Speaker would not be selected and seated until February, 1860.  (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Richard Franklin Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: the origins of central state authority in America, 1859-1877 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 52.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Lawmaking/Litigating
    How to Cite This Page: "Members of the House of Representatives meet to elect a Speaker," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/30703.