Episode 1 of 2

House Speakership Deadlock

When: December 3–22, 1849
Where: Washington, D.C.
Part of: Event of 1849: After 17 days of deadlock and 63 votes, Democrat Howell Cobb of Georgia is elect

The 31st Congress House election for Speaker required 63 ballots between December 3 and 22, 1849, due to the lack of a majority.

The House of Representatives, apportioned by the 1840 census, held a Democratic plurality but no majority. This structural imbalance led to a prolonged deadlock. The election process spanned from December 3 to December 22, 1849, requiring 63 separate ballots to determine the leadership.

Sources

31st United States Congress Wikipedia, revision of 2026-07-19

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.