Chapter 73: Democrats suffer major losses in the 1854 mid-term elections.

Reactions to the Kansas-Nebraska Act are evident in the Democrat’s loss of 75 seats to three new opponents. Among them, the KN Opposition and the Free Soilers, who will subsequently fuse into Republicans.

But losses also trace to the American Party, which sees the immigration of Catholic immigrants from Europe as a threat to national sovereignty. Critics label them “Know Nothings” in response to their secrecy and they vanish after the 1856 presidential election and the public focus on domestic slavery, not foreigners

Votes Won in the U.S. House