1857 Fort Tejon earthquake, Earthquake, Aftershocks
The largest aftershock occurred on the afternoon of January 16 with an estimated magnitude of about 6.7, with a possible offshore location, and high felt intensities in Southern California communities. Santa Barbara and San Bernardino reported an MM intensity of V and Los Angeles reported V and VI. Two significant events occurred in the San Bernardino area on December 15–16, 1858, with the latter having an estimated magnitude of about 6. The last recorded major aftershock occurred on April 16, 1860, with an estimated magnitude of about 6.3, with an epicenter close to the Parkfield section of the San Andreas Fault.


1857 Fort Tejon earthquake, Future threat
Scientists and public service officials have speculated on the threat of another very large earthquake occurring in southern California and what type and scale of damage might result. The portion of the fault that ruptured in 1857 has settled into a period of dormancy and this has given rise to suggestions that future slip along that zone may be characterized by a very large 1857-type event followed by another period of inactivity.


1857 Fort Tejon earthquake, Future threat
The communities of Frazier Park, Palmdale, and Wrightwood are all located very close to the San Andreas fault, though much of the Los Angeles area could be affected even at a greater distance from the rupture area if a similar event were to reoccur there. Swaminathan Krishnan, assistant professor of civil engineering and geophysics at the California Institute of Technology, said that if a similar rupture from Parkfield to Wrightwood were to happen again, it would severely affect the Los Angeles area, with the San Fernando Valley being particularly hard hit.


1857 Fort Tejon earthquake, Future threat
The Los Angeles Aqueduct and California Aqueduct, two of the principal water transfer infrastructure systems supplying Greater Los Angeles, both cross the San Andreas fault within the main damage zone of the Fort Tejon earthquake, in the Tehachapi and Sierra Pelona Mountains.


1857 French legislative election
Parliamentary elections were held in France on 28 February 1857, with a second round on 5 March. According to the constitution of the empire, partisans of the regime ran as "official candidates" of the regime in often gerrymandered circonscriptions. As official candidates, their campaign expenditures were paid by the government and their campaigns led by the local government.


1857 Gate
The 1857 Gate (or Class of 1857 Gate) is a triple-arched gate on the Harvard University campus, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. According to Harvard Magazine, "members of the class were killed on both sides of the fight in the Civil War", making the gate "a very touching memorial to the unbroken bonds of friendship that this class had". Students on both sides helped fund the gate. It has a Latin inscription from Horace's Odes.


1857 Gate
The gate was relocated 40 feet in 1924. It is on axis with the 1876 Gate.


1857 Grand National
The 1857 Grand National was the 19th renewal of the world-famous Grand National horse race that took place at Aintree near Liverpool, England, on 4 March 1857.


1857 Iowa Senate election
In the 1857 Iowa State Senate elections, Iowa voters elected state senators to serve in the seventh Iowa General Assembly. Elections were held for 15 of the state senate's 36 seats. State senators serve four-year terms in the Iowa State Senate.


1857 Iowa Senate election
Following the previous election in 1856, Republicans had control of the Iowa Senate with 23 seats to Democrats' 12 seats and one member from the Know Nothing Party.


1857 Iowa Senate election
To claim control of the chamber from Republicans, the Democrats needed to garner seven Senate seats.


1857 Iowa Senate election
Republicans maintained control of the Iowa State Senate following the election with the balance of power shifting to Republicans holding 22 seats and Democrats having 14 seats (a net gain of 2 seats for Democrats).


1857 Kranti (TV series)
1857 Kranti  is an Indian historical drama television series directed by Sanjay Khan and produced by Numero Uno International Limited. The drama, aired on Doordarshan National from 2002 to 2003, tells the story of the Indian Revolt of 1857. The drama was temporarily interrupted after four episodes in its earlier run due to change in commissioning norms.


1857 Kranti (TV series), Background and production
Speaking at the launch of the drama, Sanjay Khan, Chairman and Managing Director of the Numero Uno said, "The revolt of 1857 referred to as the Second Mutiny by the British is a very important facet of India’s freedom struggle. Therefore, in the age of low-cost family dramas, I have attempted to bring serials which have qualities of an epic and good cinematic values. India's first war of independence of 1857 is not more than three pages in any school textbook.


1857 Kranti (TV series), Background and production
What we are presenting is the drama and the sacrifices that people made for the nation so that nationalistic fervour is never lessened, but enhanced." There are quite a few songs in the drama that don't stop the progression of the story. We have recorded three songs out of the 20 planned. "We are proud to say this is the most expensive serial on Indian television, a television series on a cinematic scale," claims Hormuzda Davar, the CEO of the Numero Uno. The crew included over 150 technicians, 80 artistes, 150 horses, 10 elephants, 50 camels and over 2000 sword fighters. The drama approximately cost Rs 16 crore.


1857 Kranti (TV series), Background and production
The first 12 episodes of the drama was shot in Rajasthan, Chambal, Trichur, Red Fort, Umargaon and Cochin at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore. From 6 April 2003, the 1857 Kranti shifted to the Sunday prime time (at 2130 instead of 1100 hours) on DD National to boost the viewership.


1857 Lewisham rail crash
On 28 June 1857, two trains collided just east of Lewisham railway station in London, killing 11 and injuring 30 more. The 14-carriage 9:15pm from Strood, which was running 15 minutes late, pulled up 200 yards short of Lewisham station at a red signal. The guard took a red lamp to the rear of the train to warn the 9:30 train following. When he heard the approaching train he ran towards it blowing his whistle and waving the lamp. It appears that he was not seen by the driver and the standing train was struck at a speed of around 20 mph (30 km/h), destroying the brake van and rear carriage.


1857 Lewisham rail crash
A telegraph system was in place which should have prevented the second train from leaving the preceding Blackheath station until the leading train had cleared Lewisham, using a system of signal bells being rung in the signal boxes. The signals sent and received were recorded in registers kept in the signal boxes: the investigation determined that the line-clear signal had not been sent by the Lewisham signal box, despite being recorded in the Blackheath book. The driver and fireman of the second train and the Blackheath signalman were charged with "neglect of duty causing the deaths of 11 persons".


1857 Liberian general election
Presidential elections were held in Liberia in 1857. The result was a victory for incumbent President Stephen Allen Benson.


1857 Liverpool Town Council election
Elections to Liverpool Town Council were held on Monday 2 November 1857. One third of the council seats were up for election, the term of office of each councillor being three years.


1857 Liverpool Town Council election, Election result
Because of the large number of uncontested seats, these statistics should be taken in that context.


1857 Maryland annexation referendum
A referendum on annexation by Liberia was held in the Republic of Maryland on 24 February 1857. All voters voted in favor, and an agreement with Liberia was signed on 28 February. On 6 April 1857 the Liberian Legislature accepted Maryland into the republic.


1857 Maryland annexation referendum, Background
Whilst neighboring Liberia had become independent in 1847, Maryland remained a colony for a further seven years. Following a 1853 referendum, Maryland became a separate independent state on 8 June 1854.


1857 Maryland annexation referendum, Background
In December 1856 Maryland became involved in a war against the native population. Liberian troops arrived to assist in February 1857, by which time Maryland could no longer see a future as an independent state. Demands were put to the legislature for a referendum on integration into Liberia


1857 Massachusetts gubernatorial election
The 1857 Massachusetts gubernatorial election was held on November 3. Incumbent Know-Nothing Governor Henry J. Gardner ran for a fourth term in office, but lost the support of the Republican Party, which nominated Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nathaniel P. Banks. Banks prevailed over Gardner to become the first Republican Governor of Massachusetts.


1857 Massachusetts gubernatorial election
Gardner's loss also began an informal tradition of no Governor serving more than three consecutive one-year terms, which persisted until 1920, when the Governor's term was extended to two years. The only exception to this tradition was made for Governor John Albion Andrew, who held office during the Civil War.


1857 Massachusetts legislature
The 78th Massachusetts General Court, consisting of the Massachusetts Senate and the Massachusetts House of Representatives, met in 1857 during the governorship of Henry Gardner. Charles Wentworth Upham served as president of the Senate and Charles A. Phelps served as speaker of the House.


1857 Massachusetts legislature
There were 395 men in the combined house and senate, with the following occupations:


1857 Massachusetts legislature
"farmers and horticulturists, 77; merchants, 65; lawyers, 33; shoe manufacturers, 31; manufacturers, 29; clergymen, 13; physicians and housewrights, 12 each, 24; teachers, 10; master mariners, 9; lumber dealers and clerks, 6 each, 12; editors and shipwrights, 5 each, 10; blacksmiths, druggists and publishers, 4 each, 12; bakers, carriage makers, paper makers, sail makers, and grain dealers, 3 each, 16; cabinet makers, chair makers, clothiers, civil engineers, conveyancers, gentlemen, ship joiners, printers, tin plate workers, machinists, 2 each; 20; auctioneer, axe maker, auger and bitt maker, butcher, broker, balance maker, book-binder, book-keeper, book-seller, calico printer, dentist, engineer, forwarding agent, gilder, iron founder, hotel keeper, leather and hides, land surveyor, law student, reporter, provision dealer, manufacturer of cotton, silk and safes, real estate dealer, pianoforte maker, friction match, shuttle maker, bonnet maker, tanner, ship builder, tailor, mechanic, ship chandler, painter, 1 each, 35."


1857 Mexican general election
General elections were held in Mexico in September 1857. They were the first to be held under the February 1857 constitution, which introduced direct elections for the presidency, abolished the Senate, and introduced universal male suffrage for citizens aged 18 (if married) or 20 (if single), as long as they had an "honest mode of living".


1857 Mexican general election
Incumbent president Ignacio Comonfort was re-elected with over 92% of the vote, defeating Miguel Lerdo de Tejada.


1857 Minnesota gubernatorial election
The 1857 Minnesota gubernatorial election was held on October 13, 1857 to elect the inaugural governor of Minnesota.


1857 Missouri gubernatorial special election
The 1857 Missouri gubernatorial special election was held on August 7, 1857. The election was called to fill the remainder of the term of Trusten Polk, who had resigned in February 1857 upon his election to the United States Senate. In the special election, held on August 7, 1857, the Democratic nominee, Robert Marcellus Stewart, defeated Know-Nothing candidate James S. Rollins (running under the American Party label) by a margin of only 334 votes. This was Rollins' second run for Governor of Missouri, having also lost in the 1848 gubernatorial election.


1857 Moreton, Wide Bay, Burnett, Maranoa, Leichhardt and Port Curtis colonial by-election
A by-election was held for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly electorate of Moreton, Wide Bay, Burnett, Maranoa, Leichhardt and Port Curtis on 19 November 1857 because Gordon Sandeman resigned to concentrate on his business interests.


1857 Natal parliamentary election
Elections to the Legislative Council were held in the Colony of Natal for the first time in February 1857. They were the first elections after the territory had become a British Colony.


1857 Natal parliamentary election
Following the elections, the 15-seat Legislative Council met for the first time on 23 March in the government schoolroom in Pietermaritzburg, and was opened by the Governor the following day. Donald Moodie was elected as Speaker.


1857 New Brunswick general election
The 1857 New Brunswick general elections happened less than a year after the 1856 elections. The new government of the colony, lead by John Hamilton Gray, had trouble passing bills because of its slim majority of one member. One of the government MLA had a tendency to abstain on most objects, resulting in ties and gridlocks. Eventually, the government lost a vote of confidence, and the colony held new elections. The elections resulted in a defeat for the government and a victory for the Liberal MLAs. After the election, Charles Fisher returned to power as premier of the colony for the second time. He did not re-enact the prohibition law that caused his government to fall less than a year earlier.


1857 New York state election
The 1857 New York state election was held on November 3, 1857, to elect the Secretary of State, the State Comptroller, the Attorney General, the State Treasurer, the State Engineer, a Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, a Canal Commissioner and an Inspector of State Prisons, as well as all members of the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate.


1857 New York state election, History
The Democratic state convention met on September 10 and 11 at Syracuse, New York. Gideon J. Tucker (Tammany) was nominated for Secretary of State "by acclamation" after a first informal ballot showed a large majority for him and the other candidate George B. Wood was withdrawn. Sanford E. Church (Soft) was nominated for Comptroller "unanimously" after a first informal ballot showed a large majority and the other candidates Alfred M. Wood and Thomas B. Mitchell were withdrawn. Lyman Tremain, Benjamin Bailey and Francis Kernan were proposed for Attorney General but Tremain (Hard) was nominated by acclamation.


1857 New York state election, History
Isaac V. Vanderpoel, Joseph M. Lyon and Thomas Osborne were proposed for Treasurer, but Vanderpoel (Soft) was nominated unanimously. John M. Jaycox (Hard) was nominated for Canal Commissioner. The nomination for State Engineer caused much excitement when Charles R. Graham was proposed and had his party allegiance questioned when it was remembered that he had chaired a Whig convention in New York City four years previously. After much controversy, including speeches by Daniel E. Sickles and Mayor Fernando Wood, Van Rensselaer Richmond (Soft) was nominated on the first ballot.


1857 New York state election, History
William C. Rhodes (Hard) was nominated unanimously on the first ballot for Prison Inspector. The re-nomination of Hiram Denio caused another even bigger controversy. Ex-Governor Horatio Seymour rose to urge Denio's nomination, Mayor Fernando Wood spoke fiercely against it, because Denio had made decisions against Wood, and was accused of not being a Democrat. Replying to Wood, Sickles defended Denio in a speech and John Cochrane also endorsed Denio who was nominated on the first ballot with 67 out of 117 votes cast.


1857 New York state election, History
The American state convention met on September 15 at Syracuse, New York.


1857 New York state election, History
The Republican state convention met on September 23 at Wieting Hall in Syracuse, New York. Almon M. Clapp was Temporary Chairman until the choice of Abijah Mann, Jr. as President.


1857 New York state election, History
Timothy Jenkins was nominated for the Court of Appeals on the second ballot after much debate on the proposal to endorse Democrat Hiram Denio which course was defended by David Dudley Field (first ballot: Jenkins 119, Henry Wells 50, William B. Wright 45, Denio 12, E. G. Chase 4, H. H. Shankland 2, Ward Hunt 1, this was a small majority for Jenkins, but after much debate if the nomination could be made "unanimous", the roll was called again; second ballot: Jenkins 129, Wright 24, Wells 13, Denio 9).


1857 New York state election, History
William Curtis Noyes was nominated for Attorney General, and Robert Denniston for Comptroller by acclamation. Almon M. Clapp was nominated for Secretary of State on the ballot (informal ballot: William W. Campbell 91, Clapp 85, John T. Hogeboom 49; first ballot: Clapp 121, Campbell 92, Hogeboom 30; second ballot: Clapp 152, Campbell 64). John T. Hogeboom was nominated for Treasurer by acclamation.


1857 New York state election, History
Ariel S. Thurston was nominated for Canal Commissioner on the third ballot (first ballot: Thurston 74, Alexander B. Williams 64, Samuel H. Barnes 51, Ansell Bascom 16, William Mallory 15, George Geddes 11; second ballot: Thurston 98, Williams 78, Barnes 52, Bascom 3, Mallory 1; third ballot: Thurston 120, Williams 59, Barnes 58). George Geddes was nominated for State Engineer on the first ballot (vote: Geddes 140, Silas Seymour 94, scattering 4). Thomas Kirkpatrick was nominated for Prison Inspector on the second ballot (first ballot: Kirkpatrick 62, Norwood Bowne [incumbent] 39, David P. Forrest 26, Luther Caldwell 25, some more scattering; second ballot: Kirkpatrick 102, Bowne 40, Caldwell 27, Forrest 16).


1857 New York state election, Results
The whole Democratic state ticket was elected with a plurality of less than 20,000 votes over the Republican ticket while only in New York County, the stronghold of Tammany Hall, the ticket had a plurality of about 24,000 votes.


1857 New York state election, Results
15 Republicans, 14 Democrats, two Americans and one Independent Republican were elected to a two-year term (1858–59) in the New York State Senate.


1857 New York state election, Results
61 Republicans, 58 Democrats and 9 Americans were elected for the session of 1858 to the New York State Assembly.


1857 Northumberland Boroughs colonial by-election
A by-election was held for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly electorate of Northumberland Boroughs on 6 November 1857 because of the death of Bob Nichols.


1857 Ohio gubernatorial election
The 1857 Ohio gubernatorial election was held on October 13, 1857. Incumbent Republican Salmon P. Chase defeated Democratic nominee Henry B. Payne with 48.67% of the vote.


1857 Parchomenko
1857 Parchomenko, provisional designation 1971 QS1, is a stony asteroid and suspected binary from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 8 kilometers in diameter.


1857 Parchomenko
It was discovered on 30 August 1971, by Russian astronomer Tamara Smirnova at Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyj, on the Crimean peninsula, and named after astronomer Praskoviya Parchomenko.


1857 Parchomenko, Orbit and classification
Parchomenko orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 1.9–2.5 AU once every 3 years and 4 months (1,228 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.13 and an inclination of 4° with respect to the ecliptic.


1857 Parchomenko, Orbit and classification
First identified as 1931 XT at Lowell Observatory, the body's first used observation was taken at Nice Observatory in 1939, extending its observation arc by 32 years prior to its official discovery observation at Nauchnyj.


1857 Parchomenko, Physical characteristics
In the SMASS classification, Parchomenko is a common S-type asteroid.


1857 Parchomenko, Physical characteristics, Diameter and albedo
According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, Parchomenko measures 7.99 and 9.84 kilometers in diameter, and its surface has an albedo of 0.295 and 0.333, respectively. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 8.5 kilometers, based on an absolute magnitude of 12.4.


1857 Parchomenko, Physical characteristics, Rotation period
In December 2005, a rotational lightcurve of Parchomenko was obtained from a photometric observations by Robert Stephens, Brian Warner and Petr Pravec. It gave a well-defined rotation period of 3.1177 hours with a brightness variation of 0.22 magnitude (U=3).


1857 Parchomenko, Physical characteristics, Suspected binary
Three possible occultation events were observed, suggesting that Parchomenko might be a binary asteroid, having a minor-planet moon as companion. However, no new findings have been made since. In October 2008, Italian amateur astronomer Silvano Casulli measured a similar period of 3.08 hours with an amplitude of 0.27 magnitude (U=3).


1857 Parchomenko, Naming
This minor planet was named in honor of Russian astronomer Praskoviya Parchomenko (1886–1970), who observed and discovered the minor planets 1129 Neujmina and 1166 Sakuntala at the Crimean Simeiz Observatory during the 1930s and 1940s. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 June 1975 (M.P.C. 3826).


1857 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election
The 1857 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election occurred on October 13, 1857. Incumbent governor James Pollock, a Whig, was not a candidate for re-election. Democratic candidate William F. Packer defeated Republican candidate David Wilmot and American Party candidate Isaac Hazlehurst to become Governor of Pennsylvania.


1857 South Australian colonial election
Colonial elections were held in South Australia on 9 March 1857. All 36 seats in the South Australian House of Assembly, and all 18 seats in the Legislative Council were up for election.


1857 South Australian colonial election, Pre-party Premiers
No parties or solid groupings would be formed until after the 1890 election, which resulted in frequent changes of the Premier of South Australia. If for any reason the incumbent Premier lost sufficient support through a successful motion of no confidence at any time on the floor of the house, he would tender his resignation to the Governor of South Australia, which would result in interested members declaring their intent to run for the vacant position. A parliamentary ballot would then take place, resulting in the member with the most votes being sworn in by the Governor as the next Premier.


1857 South Australian colonial election, Pre-party Premiers
Informal groupings began and increased government stability occurred from the 1887 election. The United Labor Party would be formed in 1891, while the National Defence League would be formed later in the same year.


1857 South Australian colonial election, Pre-party Premiers
The first six Governors of South Australia oversaw governance from proclamation in 1836 until self-government and an elected bicameral Parliament of South Australia was enacted in the year prior to the inaugural 1857 election. The pre-1857 unicameral Legislative Council was partially represented from earlier 1851 and 1855 elections.


1857 Swiss federal election
Federal elections were held in Switzerland on 28 October 1857. The Radical Left remained the largest group in the National Council, winning 80 of the 120 seats.


1857 Swiss federal election, Electoral system
The 120 members of the National Council were elected in 49 single- and multi-member constituencies; there was one seat for every 20,000 citizens, with seats allocated to cantons in proportion to their population. The elections were held using a three-round system; candidates had to receive a majority in the first or second round to be elected; if it went to a third round, only a plurality was required. Voters could cast as many votes as there were seats in their constituency. In six cantons (Appenzell Innerrhoden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Glarus, Nidwalden, Obwalden and Uri), National Council members were elected by the Landsgemeinde.


1857 Swiss federal election, Electoral system
Compulsory voting was introduced in the Canton of Schaffhausen for the elections, with the canton seeing the highest turnout at 86.4% compared to the 46.5% figure nationally.


1857 Texas gubernatorial election
The 1857 Texas gubernatorial election was held on August 3, 1857 to elect the Governor of Texas. The election pitted Lieutenant Governor Hardin Richard Runnels against former President of the Republic of Texas Sam Houston and Lieutenant Governor hopeful French Smith. Runnels won the election with 53% of the vote, becoming the only person to ever defeat Sam Houston in a political contest.


1857 United Kingdom general election
In the 1857 United Kingdom general election, the Whigs, led by Lord Palmerston, won a majority in the House of Commons as the Conservative vote fell significantly. The election had been provoked by a vote of censure in Palmerston's government over his approach to the Arrow affair which led to the Second Opium War. Aged 72 Palmerston is the oldest person to win a general election for the first time in history.


1857 United Kingdom general election
There is no separate tally of votes or seats for the Peelites. They did not contest elections as an organised party but more as independent Free trade Conservatives with varying degrees of distance from the two main parties.


1857 United Kingdom general election in Ireland
The 1857 British general election in Ireland produced a victory in Ireland for the Whigs under Lord Palmerston. The election was the first to be contested by the Independent Irish Party under their own banner. The Independent Irish Party had been formed following the 1852 election by Liberal candidates who had pledged to form an independent party in parliament should they be elected. A total of 48 Liberal candidates made the pledge.


1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
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.


1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
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.


1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts
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.


1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts, 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.


1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts, Background
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.


1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts, House
In a noted contrast from the divisive and lengthy 1851 election, Sumner was re-elected overwhelmingly by the House on January 9.


1857 United States Senate election in Massachusetts, House
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.


1857 United States Senate election in New York
The 1857 United States Senate election in New York was held on February 3, 1857 by the New York State Legislature. Incumbent Whig Senator Hamilton Fish did not stand for re-election. The seat was won by Preston King, a former U.S. Representative and member of the newly-formed Republican Party. King was the first Republican elected to represent New York, although William H. Seward had joined the party after being elected as a Whig in 1855.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Background
Whig Hamilton Fish had been elected in 1851 to this seat, and his term would expire on March 3, 1857.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Background
In 1855, the Whig Party and the Anti- Nebraska Party merged in New York to form the Republican Party.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Background
At the State election in November 1855, 16 Republicans, 11 Americans, 4 Democrats and 1 Temperance man were elected for a two-year term (1856-1857) in the State Senate. At the State election in November 1856, 81 Republicans, 31 Democrats and 8 Americans were elected to the Assembly for the session of 1857. The 80th New York State Legislature met from January 6 to April 18, 1857, at Albany, New York.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Candidates
Preston King was nominated by a caucus of Republican State legislators. King had been a Democratic congressman from 1843 to 1847, a Free Soil congressman from 1849 to 1853, and had joined the Republican Party upon its foundation at the State convention in September 1855. The convention nominated King for Secretary of State, but he was defeated by Joel T. Headley in a four-way race.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Candidates
Secretary of State Joel T. Headley was the candidate of the American Party.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Candidates
State Senator Daniel E. Sickles was the candidate of the Democratic Party.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Election
In the Assembly the vote confirmed the party caucus selections. When State Senator Sickles received votes, the same objection to his eligibility was raised as was in 1833 regarding Nathaniel P. Tallmadge. This time, Speaker DeWitt C. Littlejohn ruled that the objection was "partially tenable and partially not so." However, the Speaker held that any member could vote for anybody, and only if the candidate received sufficient votes to win the election, a decision would be required. Otherwise, like in this case, the eligibility of an also-ran was irrelevant.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Election
In the State Senate, only 24 votes were given. Zenas Clark (Rep.) and John B. Halsted (Rep.) were sick at home. Eaton J. Richardson (Rep.) paired with Sidney Sweet (Am.). Joseph H. Petty (Am.) was absent. William Kelly (Dem. ), Mark Spencer (Dem. ), and the Democratic candidate Sickles himself, declined to vote.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Election
State Senator Justin A. Smith (Am.) raised the question if the vote for Sickles could be counted. A new State Constitution had been adopted in 1846, which had clarified the question of eligibility of State legislators.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Election
Smith quoted from the State Constitution: "No member of the Legislature shall receive any civil appointment within this State, or to the Senate of the United States, from the Governor, the Governor and Senate, or from the Legislature,  during the term for which he shall have been elected; and all votes given for any such member, for any such office or appointment, shall be void."


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Election
Lt. Gov. Henry R. Selden (later a judge of the New York Court of Appeals) decided to count the vote, holding that the United States Constitution described the eligibility for the office and devolved on the State legislatures only the power to prescribe the "times, places and manners of holding the elections for that office", thus not implying a right for the State governments to exclude any person who would be eligible under the U.S. Constitution.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Result
Preston King was the choice of both the Assembly and the Senate, and was declared elected.


1857 United States Senate election in New York, Aftermath
King served one term, and remained in office until March 3, 1863.


1857 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania
The 1857 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania was held on January 13, 1857. Simon Cameron was elected by the Pennsylvania General Assembly to the United States Senate.


1857 United States Senate election in Pennsylvania, Results
The Pennsylvania General Assembly, consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate, convened on January 13, 1857, to elect a Senator to serve the term beginning on March 4, 1857. The results of the vote of both houses combined are as follows:


1857 Vermont gubernatorial election
The 1857 Vermont gubernatorial election for governor of Vermont was held on Tuesday, September 1. In keeping with the "Mountain Rule", incumbent Republican Ryland Fletcher was a candidate for a second one-year term. The Democratic nominee was Henry Keyes, a former member of the Vermont House of Representatives and Vermont Senate who had run against Fletcher in 1856.


1857 Vermont gubernatorial election
Vermont continued to strongly support abolitionism and the Republican Party, and Fletcher was easily re-elected. Fletcher took the oath of office for a one-year term that began on October 9.


1857 Wallachian legislative election
Elections for the ad hoc Divan were held in Wallachia in September 1857. They restored a liberalizing trend that had been repressed following the 1848 revolution, also giving expression to the national awakening that was taking part among the Romanians. The toppling of the conservative Regulamentul Organic regime in both Danubian Principalities made them possible: following the 1856 Treaty of Paris, Wallachia and Moldavia functioned as a protectorates of the European powers; both were also clients of the Ottoman Empire. Excluding the spontaneous rallies of 1848, this was the first public consultation to be held in eleven years. It ran in conjunction with the Moldavian Divan elections, and, like them, had unusually lax criteria for participation, allowing peasants and guilds to vote by indirect suffrage.


1857 Wallachian legislative election
The result in both countries was a sweep for parties which demanded the union. In Wallachia, the progressive National Party, chaired by Constantin A. Crețulescu, was on this topic indistinguishable from the conservative unionist factions, respectively led by brothers Gheorghe Bibescu and Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei. A fourth party, supporting Alexandru II Ghica and Dimitrie Ghica, cooperated with Crețulescu's Committee, although disagreeing over some core policies. These groups held an absolute majority in the Divan, with only some seats going to non-unionists. Together, they formulated demands for union and increased autonomy, postponing debates about universal suffrage; middle-class progressives and the boyar elite also dissuaded peasant deputies from demanding land reform.


1857 Wallachian legislative election
The Divan resolutions were taken into account by the European powers, and some were written into the Paris Convention of 1858, which became the new organic law for the "United Principalities". This document outlawed class privilege, but also reinforced old suffrage laws, eliminating the peasant vote. It also prevented the two states from fully merging, keeping the key institutions separate—but a loophole in the text allowed a personal union. In the repeat elections of January 1859, Wallachia voted a conservative "elective assembly", dominated by Bibescu supporters. Pressured by the National Party, which threatened violence, this new legislature gave its vote to a Moldavian, Alexandru Ioan Cuza, who became Hospodar, then Domnitor, of both countries.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Regulamentul background
The Principalities had been occupied by the Russian Empire during the latter's war with the Ottomans (1829). The result was a shared Russian–Ottoman custody, with Regulamentul Organic as a constitutional law imposed on both vassals. Introducing modernizing principles such as the separation of powers, Regulamentul also reformed representation for the estates of the realm, producing the "Ordinary National Assembly"; in Wallachia, this comprised 42 members—19 of whom were elected by the 17 counties.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Regulamentul background
The electoral corps was exceedingly small: 20 representatives of the upper-crust boyar aristocracy were voted in by 56 electors, and the county representatives, generally low-ranking boyars, by some 400 electors. This mixture of modernizing and traditional elements was arrived at by repressing both the emerging liberal current, which wanted more complete freedoms, and the traditionalist boyars, who resented power-sharing combinations.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Regulamentul background
By 1836, the Assembly and the titular Prince of Wallachia, Alexandru II Ghica, were in open conflict, the boyars having discovered that sections of Regulamentul had been forged, giving legislative oversight to the Russian envoys. Although the event ended in defeat for the deputies, it helped consolidate a "National Party", which was increasingly anti-Russian. This period saw early projects to unite Wallachia and Moldavia, with even liberal Russians encouraging the idea of a "Dacian" dukedom; at least one such proposal, drafted by the Moldavian boyar Leonte Radu, also included the Principality of Serbia.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Regulamentul background
Following Ghica's ouster, his replacement was to be elected by the estates and then recognized by Sultan Abdulmejid I. The vote took place in December 1842, confronting two Russophile brothers with discreet nationalist agendas—Gheorghe Bibescu and Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei—, with each other, with the anti-Russian Iordache Filipescu, and with the arch-conservative Alecu Filipescu-Vulpea. Bibescu won by exhaustive ballot, picking 69% of the votes in the last round. Although nepotistic, his government introduced various liberal reforms, including a customs union with Moldavia, the defense of education in the national language, and the first steps toward abolishing Roma slavery.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Regulamentul background
He soon found himself at odds with the National Party over the issue of mines concessions and dismissed the Assembly, effectively ruling as an absolute monarch from 1844 to 1846. When finally elections were held in November 1846, the Prince clamped down on the boyars' electoral privilege by outlawing multiple registrations and by imposing his own candidates: 18 of 20 elected by the first estate were his close associates.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Regulamentul background
However, within two years, he and his friendly Assembly were toppled by the liberal-and-nationalist Revolution. Regulamentul was denounced and publicly burned. During this brief interregnum, the Proclamation of Islaz promised universal male suffrage (tempered by indirect elections) within a republicized elective monarchy. Most revolutionaries agreed that there was still no social grounding for universal direct suffrage. Some elections based on these quasi-democratic principles were held at Vlașca, but the process was cut short by more pressing political issues. The new forms of representation allowed peasant deputies such as Ene Cojocaru to demand the abolition of corvée, which survived despite there being no formal serfdom. The issue became entangled with a lengthy and divisive discussion about land reform.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Repressive regime
The clampdown by a joint Ottoman–Russian intervention, and the Convention of Balta Liman, restored Regulamentul but suspended the elective monarchy. Princes were designated by Abdulmejid, with Știrbei taking the throne of Wallachia for a period of seven years. The Assembly, reconstituted as the "National Divan", mainly preserved consultative functions, being composed entirely of bureaucrats, judges, and bishops of the Wallachian Orthodox Church. Most revolutionary leaders were either expelled or self-exiled. This group only included 23 men; however, the government also began a clampdown on political activities, persecuting even those remotely associated with the 1848 cause—for instance, the architect Iacob Melic. The poet Constantin D. Aricescu, who circulated revolutionary poetry in manuscript form, was arrested and imprisoned.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Repressive regime
The National Party was reconstructed in exile by the 1848 revolutionaries, who, from ca. 1850, began pressing for union above all other points on the agenda, although its leaders remained committed to international republican and European federalist causes to 1856. In this context, there was a noticeable rapprochement between Bibescu and the exiled revolutionaries, pushing Știrbei to adopt an even more conservative stance, and making him more reliant on the military. His repressive regime was cut short by the Crimean War, in which Western powers sided with the Ottomans against Russia. The events also interrupted Nicolae Pleșoianu's designs to participate with other former revolutionaries in the New South Wales gold rush. However, most failed to enlist in the Ottoman Army, as they had intended.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Repressive regime
The Austrian Empire intervened to clamp down on revolutionary activity in Oltenia (the western third of Wallachia). Here, the Ottoman authorities had allowed the liberals to put out a newspaper, Jurnalul Craiovei, which, in June 1854, hosted Dimitrie Bolintineanu's editorial in support of union under Ottoman suzerainty. Also in June, Austrian troops occupied both Principalities, preventing Russia from maintaining a presence in the Balkans. With Count Coronini as military supervisor, Știrbei was reconfirmed as Prince. Alongside his minister Nicolae Crețulescu, he consolidated conservatism, refusing to grant entry permits to exile radicals, and instituting heavy censorship of the media.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Repressive regime
Both however endorsed the unionist cause, explicitly so from 1855, when Crețulescu lobbied the Palmerston cabinet and Napoleon III for a unified Romania, governed from Bucharest and possibly ruled upon by Știrbei. In such proposals, Știrbei also insisted that Wallachia preserve its dominant role, and campaigned against moving the capital to Iași. He found an ally in Ioan Maiorescu, the former revolutionary, who drafted a unionist project stressed the need for a Wallachian on the throne, and also promised to draw the resulting state into Austria's sphere of influence—though both regarded the latter proposal as unrealistic.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Repressive regime
Știrbei and Maiorescu's vision was endorsed by some of the more conservative exiles, including Gheorghe Magheru and Ion Heliade Rădulescu; others, including the Romanian Revolutionary Committee of Paris, militated both against Știrbei and for unification. Another wing of the unionist movement was a "bourgeois group", clandestinely formed during autumn 1854 to support Alexandru II Ghica's return on the throne. Its members included Ion Ghica, Constantin Bosianu, economist Gheorghe Costaforu, and banker Cristache Polihroniadi, who together sponsored the newspaper Timpul. As noted by diplomat Henry Stanley, the Wallachians were also divided along geopolitical priorities. Boyars, who were especially fearful of land reform, included "many Russian partizans  [sic]", while the middle classes were mostly against Russia, with students and peasants generally pro-Ottoman.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Repressive regime
While still present in the Principalities, Austrian envoys gave some endorsement to the more radical projects for peasant emancipation. According to historian Alexandru Lapedatu, they did so in order to stoke social conflict, as the unionist nationalism embraced by boyars raised the issue of irredentism among the Romanians of Transylvania and Bukovina. Although he welcomed constitutionalism, Viscount Palmerston rejected the proposal to make Wallachia and Moldavia a condominium of the West and the Ottomans, regarding them as inalienably Ottoman. He remained agnostic about union, although Villiers of Clarendon and Napoleon came to support the idea. Napoleon, "eager as he was to dismantle the creation of the 1815 Vienna treaties", also envisaged a foreign dynasty for the new state, moving either Francis of Modena or Robert of Parma to the new throne.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Historical context, Repressive regime
Știrbei, who emerged as the Austrian favorite in a close race with Bibescu, continued to preserve an ambiguous, "extremely prudent", course. In 1855, seeking to curtail the Ghicas' influence, he repressed Timpul and encouraged radical unionists to publish a more left-wing paper called Patria. During September, members of this group, led by a 19-year-old Eugeniu Carada, publicly celebrated the fall of Sevastopol. Știrbei again attempted to contain the movement by co-opting Carada as a junior Dragoman in his ministry. Writing at the time, Maiorescu also advised Știrbei to seek counsel from the more "mature" among Wallachia's revolutionary exiles. In February 1856, Știrbei issued letters of protest, directed against the Ottomans' attempt to re-annex the Principalities—but also criticizing the Wallachian revolutionaries active in Ottoman ranks. He also pressed for a boyar assembly to review and reform Regulamentul.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
With the defeat of Russia drawing near, exiled unionists began presenting their case to the Ottoman statesmen, introducing their project as a moderate guarantee against both Pan-Slavism and Greek nationalism; some in this group also wished for union to be effected under Grigore V Ghica, who was at the time the reigning Prince of Moldavia. Still a conditional Știrbeist, Maiorescu opposed the ideological threat posed by Ottomanism, and, with Constantin Hurmuzachi, prepared for print a brochure accusing the Sublime Porte of pervasive encroachment on Wallachian and Moldavian autonomy.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
During those weeks, Ottoman and Austrian diplomats met with envoys of Britain and Imperial France to discuss the property regime in Wallachia and Moldavia. Though divided between a radical anti-boyar position taken by Austria's Prince Prokesch-Osten and a strongly conservative project advanced by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, they eventually agreed on the need to suspend the corvée and eliminate all remaining forms of personal servitude.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
In March 1856, a Western protectorate was established under the Treaty of Paris; Ottoman sovereignty was kept in check by Austria, Russia, Britain, France, Prussia, and Sardinia. The Treaty also specified the notion of representation and public consultation, instituting the ad hoc Divans. Consultation was going to take place including in respect to the Principalities' union—although the latter was opposed by the Ottomans and the Austrians. The Ottoman viewpoint was embraced by Palmerston and Clarendon, who tried to persuade the French into renouncing the foreign dynasty scheme, which was particularly disliked by Abdulmejid.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
With censorship laws still in place, the unionist campaign was supported from Moldavia by the National Party magazine Stéoa Dunărei. Public disputes were focused on conflicts between the conservatives Știrbei and Alexandru Ghica, who took over as Caimacam (regent); the National Party was organizing more discreetly, with Ioan I. Filipescu forming a club for what he called the Bucharest sans-culottes. In July, Grigore Ioranu of the National Party informed the Moldavian Mihail Kogălniceanu that "Bucharest is now crisscrossed by committees overseen by the Central committee. This was replicated in just about every district."


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
In Buzău, the Union Committee, formed on March 16, was confronted two days later by the Assembly of Landowners, which rejected the unionist agenda; Stéoa Dunărei reported that the latter only had 6 members, less than half of those who had registered with the Committee. Unionism of various hues was also spread by the Freemasonry. A Masonic Lodge established for this purpose was particularly active in the border town of Focșanii Munteniei, reuniting boyar and bourgeois activists: Alexandru Plagino, Grigore D. Marghiloman, Constantin Robescu, Alecu Sihleanu, and Panaite Tufelcică. Filipescu also contacted Aga Constantin A. Crețulescu, brother of the resigning minister, asking him to sponsor a unionist gazette. Crețulescu refused, reportedly because he disliked the movement's anti-boyar radicalization and "anarchism".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
By August 1856, Caimacam Ghica, who remained an anti-unionist and "not a man of progress", sought to clamp down perceived unionist cells in the state apparatus. He tried to depose Iancu Marghiloman from his position as governor of Buzău County, but did not consider doing the same for conservative governors who were "persecuting the unionists". He had also split the conservatives by ordering a purge of Știrbeists from the administration; Barbu Știrbei, his son George, and Plagino were all driven into passivity or collaboration with the National Party.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
Most boyars rallied with yet another conservative-and-unionist faction, which was headed by Bibescu; Ghica sought to counter the trend, outing himself as a backer of Timpul. Filipescu also used this confusion to set up a clandestine Unionist Committee, which branched out into all Wallachian cities and began petitioning foreign governments to obtain a timetable for the unification. The Committee was also behind the enthusiastic welcoming of the French Commissioner, Baron Talleyrand, which doubled as an anti-Ottoman and anti-Austrian demonstration. Some 80 men also greeted Talleyrand in Buzău, asking him to promote the "union of both principalities as a strong state".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
Over those months, the revolutionary exiles began testing Caimacam Ghica's resolve by making their way back into the country, sometimes with Știrbei's tacit endorsement: Magheru, Alexandru G. Golescu and Grigore Serrurie had regained Bucharest before the end of 1856. Ion Brătianu returned in the early months of 1857. At that stage, authorities began observing that unionist propaganda was already being taken to the streets and the villages—in November, schoolteacher Constantin Tănase of Olt was under surveillance for having collected signatures in support of the National Party agenda.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
In September, Alexandru's nephew, Beizadea Dimitrie Ghica, who had kept a low profile ever since 1848, publicized his own manifesto, which offered a crossover of liberal and conservative doctrines, chiding youth for the Talleyrand incident. This younger Ghica did not oppose union with Moldavia, but advised its partisans not to draw too much attention to their project. This revival failed to impress the returning exiles, with Serrurie writing in November that boyardom needed to be "burned alive and its ashes scattered".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Ghica's regency
Heliade's conservatives, who maintained some links with the Ghicas, also began reorganizing themselves into a more cohesive group: by November, Heliade and his associate Niculae Rusu Locusteanu were putting out their own newspaper, Conservatorul, from exile in Bellinzona. It published political essays critical of other emergent factions, and praised the Caimacam as a balanced reformist. They differed from all other factions in their solution to the peasant issue, advocating collective farming and utopian socialism, and even suggesting the violent expropriation of boyar estates; Bolintineanu described their agenda as "something out of a madman's brain".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Election firman
After consultations with Western plenipotentiaries, the Sultan took the initiative and, on January 13, 1857, issued a firman sanctioning elections. This was read out publicly in Bucharest in March, and signed into law by Ghica in April. It set the voting age at 30, while splitting the electoral corps into five classes of voters, with massive enfranchisement. There were 10,141 qualified electors in Wallachia, as opposed to only 2,954 in Moldavia.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Election firman
At core, the Divans would still preserve corporatism as the electoral principle, retaining a characteristic of its 1840s predecessors; however, the firman introduced radically new divisions of the body politic, such as recognizing the political importance of liberal professions. Although, in the 1850s, guilds "no longer controlled production", they maintained some local importance as "professional and fiscal organizations", and were still assigned an electoral function. The document was also expressly against the political enfranchisement of Romanies who had been enslaved until 1856.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Election firman
Overall, there were 94 to 100 deputies. Accounts differ because of the unspecified number of supplementary seats for the Wallachian clergy, which now enfranchised priests and stareți. The bishops were members by right; clergy also elected 6 or 10 deputies altogether—4 of which represented the high clergy. Outside the church class, there were 90 Divan deputies, representing the 17 counties, with at least one deputy per county capital and at least 4 from the rural constituencies. Dolj and Prahova had 6 deputies each, and Ilfov had 8, 4 of them representing Bucharest.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Election firman
Boyars were controversially merged into a single group, and, except for the wealthiest, were not allowed to vote outside their home county, partially confirming Bibescu's earlier limitations of suffrage. High-ranking boyars, comprising some 90 people, were thus fused with the 2,700 of the low-and-middle boyar category; the only requirement for membership was owning an estate over 111 hectares (0.4 square miles), although candidates had to own at least 334 hectares (1.3 square miles). By September, the category had been restructured to include 753 voters, about 20% of whom were concentrated in Ilfov and Buzău.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Election firman
Urban constituencies included all 17 county capitals, each electing one deputy, except for Bucharest's 4, and for 2 each in Craiova and Brăila. Brăila was eventually relegated to one deputy, and Ploiești moved up to where it had two.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Election firman
Voting rights were only extended to some portions of the urban class, with various grandfather clauses attached; groups included: state-recognized professionals, regardless of wealth, who had been living in the respective town or city for no less than three years; homeowners with a taxable wealth set at 8,000 kuruşlar—or 20,000 in Bucharest; attested tradesman and master craftsmen; and journeymen (voting indirectly—with 4 electors per guild). This electoral geography produced an urban constituency comprising, overall, 3,000 voters: 1,300 were in Bucharest (about 2% of that city's population), and 285 at Craiova, with as few as 43 for Târgu Jiu.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Preparation, Election firman
The other two classes, both rural, voted indirectly: 8,000 non-aristocratic landowners were defined as having at least 11 hectares (27 acres), and sent 5 electors and 1 deputy per county (although their numbers ranged from 1,630 in Romanați to only 12 in Brăila County); 220,000 peasants were represented through their 2,931 village assemblies, which elected two delegates each, with all county delegates electing one deputy per county. The latter provision was especially unpopular with the boyars, who feared a surge of "mean passions". Resigning from the ministry in April 1857, N. Crețulescu asked Édouard Thouvenel, France's Ambassador to the Porte, to withdraw that requirement (although he conceded on the inclusion of non-boyars and guilds).


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Forging alliances
Timpul was again published from December 1856, signalling the lifting of censorship. By then, its "anti-feudal" campaign was also assisted by Costaforu's theoretical journal, Magazinul Judecătoresc. In February of the following year, C. A. Crețulescu was finally allowed to put out a moderate unionist paper, Concordia, published in Bucharest. Eventually, Caimacam Ghica also renounced anti-unionism and, alongside the Timpul faction, moved closer to the National Party, hoping to defeat Bibescu. Also in February, two of the Caimacam's counsels, Costaforu and Bosianu, alongside his nephew Dimitrie and Barbu Bellu, published an "ultra-liberal" manifesto for the foreseeable elections. They now attacked Concordia for its views on class collaboration—according to historian Vasile Maciu, Bellu was infiltrated into the group by Bibescu partisans such as Constantin N. Brăiloiu and Barbu Catargiu, who hoped that ideological conflicts would distract both groups from pushing an egalitarian agenda.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Forging alliances
During the last days of February, Costaforu and Bosianu split with Bellu, establishing a "free assembly" of the National Party. Writing for Timpul, Costaforu invited the grand boyars to voluntarily relinquish all privilege or risk placing themselves "outside the nation." His party did not support land reforms, but stated its opposition to the corvée system, declaring it a breach on personal sovereignty. Union, Costaforu argued, was an "old idea of our nation", the "political tendency of the whole people", and was therefore inevitable. Concordia's Ion Bălăceanu joined the club on its creation, but left within days, alleging that it only existed to serve the Ghicas; in fact, Costaforu was attempting to energize the middle class into preventing all boyar candidacies for the Divan, and hinted at designs for a democratic republic.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Forging alliances
Beyond Concordia and Timpul, the unionist campaign also relied on direct tactics, including oratory: voter interest was exceptionally high, with as many as 700 attendees at campaign meeting in Bucharest in March (almost half of the entire electoral basin). Majority groups rejected the radical platform advanced by the Ghicas, leading Bosianu to withdraw from the National Party. Before March 3 (New Style: March 15), he was talked into rejoining and awarded with a seat on the Unified Committees, alongside Costaforu.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Forging alliances
The party as a whole, co-chaired by C. A. Crețulescu and banker Lazăr (Lazaros) Kalenderoglu, issued a program demanding union under a foreign dynasty, with autonomy, perpetual neutrality, extended suffrage, and representative government. The extended agenda proposed equality before the law, a codified right to property, freedom of contract and the suspension of corvées.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Forging alliances
From April, coordination between the two branches of the National Party was enhanced by the arrival to Bucharest of a Moldavian delegation comprising, among others, Kogălniceanu, Vasile Alecsandri, and Dimitrie Rallet. The established platform was communicated to the local party branches of Wallachia, which also organized in the open. While heading the National Party as a whole, C. A. Crețulescu also organized the Brăila County section. At Vlașca, Serrurie held a chair on the regional Committee, alongside State Ariton and Ioniță Gurki.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Forging alliances
Aricescu emerged as the radical unionist leader in Muscel County, where he and Nicolae Rucăreanu staged political plays which propagated the nationalist slogans. The Bucharest trend was also witnessed in Prahova, were, as historian Silvia Marton notes, "liberals and unionists feverishly organized themselves". Before May, Costaforu had traveled around Wallachia, spreading his philosophy among the various clubs. This activity was observed and criticized by the Russian consul, Konstantin Basily, who argued that calls for a "social revolution" would compromise any "political reform" that was expected of the union.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
Also fearing the growth of democratic unionism, Bibescu's party channeled the conservative vote, forming its own Unionist Committee on March 10 (March 22). This faction insisted on maintaining boyar representation; however, Bibescuists also claimed authorship for the core unionist program, accusing the Crețulescu group of plagiarism. In their version, it included references to a hereditary monarch, or Domnitor; representative government and meritocracy; a limited Ottoman rule with adherence to the Capitulations; and full respect for the property rights.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
This was a significant moment in history, signaling that the staunchest conservatives had renounced the notion of boyar-only representation, and only slightly amended the language of liberal ideologists. Hoping to attract support from the lower classes, they also reputedly promised a confiscation of monastery land. Bibescu himself held no official seat on the organization, which was nominally headed by Catargiu, Ion Emanuel Florescu, and Scarlat Bărcănescu.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
Before April, some conservatives quit this group to join Crețulescu's Committee, which now clarified its stance by declaring itself against land reforms. Bibescuists remained especially strong at Craiova, where party organizers included Emanoil Quinezu and Nicolae Haralambie. Bibescu himself was welcomed in triumph by the city, but remained hesitant about capturing the unionist movement for his own goals. In April, however, Quinezu displayed his conversion to liberal radicalism. Alongside Petru "Pera" Opran, he put out the draft of a constitution which rejected any attempted return of Regulamentul Princes. He created an especially vibrant unionist cell and electoral committee, which also comprised figures such as Barbu Bălcescu, Gheorghe Chițu, and Grigore Lăceanu; together, they put out a nationalist paper, Vocea Oltului. They ended up rejecting Bibescu, whom they found to be "timid".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
In May, Konstantin Basily arrived in Bucharest to observe the situation on Russia's behalf. He was welcomed by the Bibescu party, whose members complained that Costaforu was inciting an anti-boyar revolution in the provinces. Basily was upset, and demanded that Costaforu tone down his party's propaganda; Costaforu diverted attention from his own radicalism by informing him that Bibescu had preemptively endorsed secularization. Basily became disappointed by both camps, promising them that Russia would never allow for monastery land to be confiscated. Știrbei, meanwhile, also published a constitutional project with virtually the same proposals as Crețulescu's.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
The Caimacam party also reemerged, once Bosianu again withdrew from the National Party venture, establishing his own Unionist Committee, and hoping to elect Dimitrie Ghica as Prince. Very few joined him, since, at the time, the Beizadea himself supported the notion of electing a foreigner. Bosianu established his own newspaper, called România. It depicted itself as a moderate and dispassionate voice in politics, and on such grounds presented arguments in support of the common unionist platform; by June, Bosianu himself had endorsed the project to import a Western European ruling house.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
On March 11 (March 23), 1857, the Austrians evacuated Bucharest, and the longest ever campaigning in Romanian political history began officially. Its staples now included political imagery. At an early stage, most unionist propaganda art was produced by Constantin Lecca, with historical scenes that reminded Wallachians about an earlier union, under Michael the Brave. In July 1857, the debuting painter Theodor Aman of Craiova completed an allegorical canvass, the Union of the Principalities. Hailed as a milestone in patriotic artistry, it was followed soon after by mass prints of Petre Alexandrescu's similarly titled piece. Aricescu and Rucăreanu's work in theater was taken up in Bucharest by brothers Costache and Iorgu Caragiale. Their vaudevilles ridiculed an emerging mass panic, according to which a comet would strike Wallachia before the union could take place.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
The democratic side of unionism was by then completely free to organize, and its most radical proponents, C. A. Rosetti and Christian Tell, regained Bucharest during June. Highly popular with what Bălăceanu called the "socialist youth", they joined Concordia and shunned Timpul. As reported in late 1857 by a disgruntled Bolintineanu, radical émigrés "are creating intrigue and division". Elsewhere, differences of opinion between the unionists were muted by agreements between voters. For instance, all 292 voters registered in Vlașca vowed to support the candidate deemed best during Unionist Committee primaries.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Unionist consolidation, Emerging consensus
In that context, very few Wallachians still rejected union, and those who did never formed a party of their own. As noted by historian A. D. Xenopol, they included Colonel Dimitrie Papazoglu, and also those boyars who feared competition from the more numerous Moldavians for the ranks and offices of the court. Opposition to the unionist project came from the outsiders Heliade and Rusu Locusteanu. They endorsed the union on principle, but objected to the Divans being convened by the Porte; overall, they also favored a crowned republic under a native ruler.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
The principles behind the suffrage were first put to the test in the Moldavian election of July, where conflicts opposed an anti-unionist Caimacams, Teodor Balș and Nicolae Vogoride, to the National Party. Vogoride's attempt to repress Moldavian unionism alienated Wallachian conservatives, who denounced him as a conspirator. As clampdown was signaled by the closure of Stéoa Dunărei, which reappeared from Brussels with Nicolae Ionescu as editor. The prolonged dispute culminated in attempted fraud by Vogoride and an election boycott by the unionists. This tactic invalidated the scrutiny there, and Moldavia had its own repeat election in September.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
Unbeknown to the Romanian unionists of both countries, in August 1857 Britain and France agreed not to recognize union, regardless of the election results. However, the unionists could still count on unofficial backing by their French contacts, who hinted that all one had to do to obtain the union was to get the mass of the people to vote for it. Russia also kept favorably neutral: Basily condemned Vogoride's act, privately expressing hopes that a politically diverse landscape would weaken Ottoman control of both countries.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
"Severe and sound" supervision by the Caimacam ensured that election in Wallachia was beyond reproach. Ghica also postponed the final date of voting from September 17 (New Style: September 29) to September 21 (October 3). The results came in as a landslide for the unionist camps: according to Stéoa Dunărei, a near-complete count revealed that "only 3 or 4 deputies were doubtfully unionist, but even they will likely follow the general mood"; all of the 17 second-class peasant deputies were selected from among National Party affiliates.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
This was similar to the concurrent Moldavian election, where a minuscule number of the September Divan were separatists. C. A. Crețulescu and party colleague Grigore N. Filipescu were elected as grand boyars for Brăila County, part of an all-unionist sweep which also gave seats to Mihalache Marghiloman, Marcu N. Dulie, and the peasant Stroe Ivașcu. Of the prominent revolutionaries in Wallachia, Ion Brătianu won by four votes in the landowners college at Argeș, while Rosetti took a seat for the bourgeois class at Bucharest.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
Two of the three Bucharest seats also went to Concordia men, with only one taken by a Ghica partisan, the merchant Dimitrie Culoglu. Dimitrie Brătianu won the seat at Pitești, taking all 78 bourgeois votes, with Scarlat Turnavitu as peasant deputy; in neighboring Muscel, Alexandru and Ștefan Golescu, alongside Aricescu, were among the elected (although Aricescu's victory was touched by allegations of fraud).


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
The same trend was observed throughout the country, with Basily noting that the "men of '48" and the "unhinged" were in control of the Divan. Nicolae Golescu came first in the Bucharest constituency, taking 1,004 votes, while Magheru took a seat as a great landowner for Gorj County. Serrurie won the vote of Giurgiu city constituents; with the other Vlașca deputies being Aga Emanuel Lahovari and Paharnic Nae Tătăranu (for the boyars), Postelnic Constantin Rădulescu (for the landowners), and Stan Panaiti (for the peasantry). Winners for the National Party also included, among the boyars of Teleorman, Captain Eliodor Lapati and Nicolae Butculescu, with both Marghiloman and Robescu elected for Râmnicu Sărat County. Guilds also gave their votes to former revolutionaries, including Iancu Ionașcu at Slatina and Constantin T. Grigorescu at Ploiești.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
However, the Caimacam was able to prevent his conservative critics from getting elected, in particular Catargiu. The unionist sweep was balanced by Olt, which elected unionists Constantin Tănase and Iancu Ionașcu, along with the arch-conservative Ioan Solomon, and the non-affiliated Constantin Văleanu and Ioan Slăvițescu. The Solomon family, which had a hold on the county, attempted to replace Tănase with the more conservative Ioan Niculescu; arrested for fraud, then exonerated, Tănase was able to take his seat in the Divan during November.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
Ialomița also contrasted the general trend, having elected as a boyar deputies Ioan C. Roset—a member of the Caimacam party who initially announced that he would not endorse the union; and Bibescu's son-in-law, Aga Alexandru Emanuel Florescu, who declared that he would. Ialomița's richer peasant category had sent Răducanu Cucuti, a supporter of the Caimcam, while the other deputies, Stoica Radu Cojocariu and Ion Vasile, declared for the National Party.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
Other prominent conservatives elected to the Divan included Princes Bibescu and Știrbei. Both ran at Buzău, but lost by large margins: Bibescu had 11 votes, and Știrbei 2, whereas the winners, Nicolae N. Pâcleanu and Scarlat Voinescu, had 49 and 44, respectively. The latter two, alongside fellow delegates Constantin Ciochinescu and Nae Stănescu, were pledged to the National Party—Pâcleanu had only arrived there as a supporter of Caimacam Ghica. Both former Princes were able to recover from this setback: as titular grand boyars, they could still run in two or more constituencies, taking Divan seats at Dolj.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
Știrbei also ran (and lost) in Vâlcea County, where the boyar seats went to Logothete Ioan Oteteleșanu (who had nearly been invalidated over questions regarding his estate outside Bălcești) and Nicolae Lahovari. Both were contested by conservative voters, as was the peasant deputy Stamate Budurescu (allegedly a career criminal). The issues subsided when all deputies, most of whom were unaffiliated, agreed to support the shared platform of conservative and progressive unionists.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
In the church sections, the bishops led campaigns for or against union. As early as April 1857, Calinic, the Bishop of Râmnic, described union as "the crowning of our battles and of the blood we shed for the Cross", pushing his monks to vote in favor; Metropolitan Neofit II was more reserved about his opinions at that stage, and described by church historian Natalia Manoilescu-Dinu as "duplicitous". Calinic's enthusiasm was replicated by Filotei, the Bishop of Buzău, who openly adhered to the National Party platform. Clergymen elected in their respective class included four protopopes, represented four sees: Constantin of Râmnic (a "fully committed partisan of the Union"), Iancu of Bucharest, Constantin of Argeș, and Vasile of Buzău. Other seats were taken by Atanasie Stoenescu of Sadova Monastery and Ieronim of Bistrița.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
Wallachia's ad hoc Divan opened on September 29 (October 10), seven days after its Moldavian counterpart. The rainy weather did not chase away the crowd gathering in a show of support on Dealul Mitropoliei, Bucharest. The celebration lasted into the night, with Bucharest festively lit with the newly introduced gas lighting and adorned with the National Party's slogans. The Divan's first session saw enthusiastic speeches, including one by Rosetti which ended with shouts of Trăiască România! ("Long Live Romania!").


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Results
It subsequently organized itself: two committees were set up to validate the deputies and come up a parliamentary procedure; one was chaired by Grigore Gr. Ghica. Metropolitan Neofit was, ex officio, the Divan's president, and tacitly endorsed the union, with N. Golescu elected vice president by a large margin. The Divan's secretaries included D. Brătianu (elected with 85 votes), C. A. Crețulescu, Rosetti, Scarlat Turnavitu, Ștefan Golescu, and Bosianu. Iancu Ionașcu oversaw the official printing office.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
In Moldavia and Wallachia alike, the unionist camps of all hues agreed on the core agenda, with demands which they presented to the overseeing powers: the unification under the name of "Romania", with the election of a foreign hereditary Domnitor; increased autonomy toward the Ottoman Empire, with the (re)introduction of Capitulations; a new Divan with a fuller democratic mandate. Bibescu openly supported the election of Westerner, but for particular reasons: he argued that a European prince could not only pacify tensions between the classes, but also instill a greater political ideal.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
A main issue of contention between conservative and radical unionists was that of electoral law and philosophy: radicals such as Rosetti felt themselves bound by an imperative mandate, or "dutiful program", whereas conservatives rejected such notions as impinging on individual freedom. Persuaded by Concordia leftists, a majority of the Divan agreed on the notion of unicameralism, viewing upper houses as a throwback to the Regulamentul era.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
News of the deputies' vote on union were received with much enthusiasm in both Bucharest and Craiova; the celebrations were witnessed by Aman, and are the source for one of his other political paintings. The four principles were drafted into a motion, carried by unanimous suffrage on October 21 (November 2). Its consultative function fulfilled, the Divan only survived to late December 1857, closing some days after the Moldavian assembly. By then, as the attention moved to social issues, the conservative and liberal factions were again emerging, and clashing.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
Robescu and other right-wing unionists signaled this by asking that positive references to the peasant revolt of 1821 be erased from the Divan's addresses. In October, Bibescu warned that party politics were the sordid future of the post-union era, "making this forsaken country of ours into an arena, collecting all her strengths and vitality".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
In late November, more controversy was sparked by the letter sent to the Moldavian Divan, which A. G. Golescu described as "unbecoming and dangerous", initiating a public dispute with the other deputies. Two variants of the letter were eventually sent: a longer one, which made explicit reference to the two peoples "components of the same trunk, spread into several ancestries", as well as to their shared history, "even our [shared] name", being erased by the intrusion of foreigners; the shorter version simply acknowledged Moldavian primacy in upholding union as a "patriotic feat".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
Meanwhile, the Wallachian Divan continued to face dissent in its own ranks, particularly over whether its deputies could rule on the future organization of "Romania". In early November, Christian Tell and Ștefan Golescu attempted to replicate the Moldavian example and pass legislation which could see the Divan taking on more parliamentary responsibilities. They were defeated by a conjectural alliance of deputies, headlined by Dulie, Nicolae Rucăreanu and A. G. Golescu—a rift which ran through both the National Party and the Golescu family.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
During the disputes, church deputies also blocked conservative advances by siding with the progressive unionist agenda, arguing in writing that its demands needed to be imposed on the European powers. In a private letter, Calinic made additional demands to condition his left-wing allies: that future rulers of the Romanian state were to be baptized Orthodox, and that parliamentary debates be carried out in a form of Romanian that lower-class deputies could follow. On November 27, Bibescu resigned and left the country, arguing that progressive elements, though a minority of the country, were "imposing their ruinous politicking on the majority".


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
On the right, the Știrbeists were evasive on the topic of union: Știrbei and his son George Barbu were hopeful that they could preserve friendly relations with the Ottoman Empire, which they prioritized over the nationalist goals. Another major rift opposed the landed or urban classes to the peasantry. During the election, Conservatorul had alleged that peasants were not interested in the vote, describing peasant candidates to a boyar assembly as "sheep among wolves". In the peasant college of Vâlcea, interest in voting had been marginal, possibly a sign that this class did not find itself represented. In one Divan session, peasant deputy Gheorghe Lupașcu advanced a concrete proposal for direct suffrage. Described as untimely by Crețulescu, it was withdrawn by its proponent; a motion was passed according to which the Divan would refrain from ruling on electoral matters.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
As explained in a speech by Ion Brătianu, nominally a leader of the "far-left", all middle- and upper-class deputies agreed on not instituting or demanding universal suffrage. Overall, Brătianu advocated class collaboration for "the general interest", hoping not to antagonize the conservatives. The same ideal was championed by Vasile Boerescu in his newspaper Naționalul, published from December 1857: though discussing the peasantry's "precarious state", he also advised self-restraint on both sides of the social divide.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Divan resolutions and disputes
In its final sessions, the Divan heard another plea from peasant delegates Tănase of Olt and Marin Pârcălăbescu of Romanați, who demanded "laws based on justice" and an increased electoral weight for the peasantry. Debates over the suspension of the corvée ensued, with the boyars advancing their own report. It restated that land used by the peasants was boyar property paid for in labor, and noted that mechanized agriculture and the resulting drop of labor costs justified maintaining and expanding the corvée.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
While Brătianu had officially embraced moderation and gradualism, radicalized members of the National Party, including Bolintineanu and George Crețianu, began preparing for reorganization as a secret society. On February 22, 1858, another firman officially dissolved the Wallachian Divan. Its text described the country as a "province and integral part" of the Ottoman territory, which caused consternation among the deputies; 24 of them signed to a letter of protest. It then fell on the European powers to evaluate the demands stated by both Divans.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
This they did in a new conference, delayed by the war in Montenegro and eventually convened at Paris in August 1858. The resulting Convention of Paris recognized the concept of "United Principalities" under Ottoman suzerainty. It designated the Domnitor as Hospodar, but did not allow hereditary rule and limited eligibility to local men of property, of any social standing, with a view to formally abolishing boyar ranks and titles. Under the Convention, both the thrones and the assemblies remained separate.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
The legislatures were only supervised by a quasi-federal Central Commission, meeting in Focșani, with attributions only in the matter of "legislation of common interests to both Principalities", having some elements of a constitutional court and an election commission. A technicality made it legally possible for the same person to be elected as ruler of both countries.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
In 1857, Știrbei had advanced projects to drastically reduce electoral participation, seen by him as a meritocracy that discriminated between active citizens and purely governed ones. The Convention supplanted the firman of January 1857 in matters of electoral legislation, operating some major changes, all of them having a conservative bias, and cutting the electoral corps back to some 2,000 voters, less than half of whom voted directly.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
The five classes of both Principalities were replaced with two, of rural and urban voters, subdivided into groups which elected directly or indirectly; the voting age was lowered to 25, and the minimum property requirement was set as 100 ducats.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
Each county dispatched 3 rural deputies, of whom 2 were directly elected; cities and towns voted 1 deputy each, except for Bucharest, which had 3, Craiova and Ploiești, which sent 2. Candidates, who had to be aged 30 and possess 400 ducats to their name, could be elected in several constituencies at once, but were required to settle for only one.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
In the rural constituencies, all those under 1,000 ducats could only vote indirectly—prompting members of the National Party to donate some of their land to landless colleagues, in a bid to increase their relative voting power; that threshold was set at 6,000 ducats in the cities, but property as defined for that class could include many forms of capital assets. Extreme discrepancies resulting from these requirements included Muscel County, which now had only 7 qualified direct voters in the rural constituencies, while its capital town, Câmpulung, produced 17 voters of all categories. In nearby Pitești, there were only 8 voters in all. In Moldavia, the same rules created an infamous paradox at Ismail, where there was only one qualified voter, Vladimir Stoica.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
According to the Swiss traveler Johann Fridolin Herzog, Caimacam Ghica survived for the rest of his term as a "powerless plaything" of the boyardom, his executive power rendered null by their "petty intrigues". The political spectrum was again dividing itself, with moderates such as Costaforu and Boerescu declaring themselves placated by the Convention, while radicals such as Brătianu openly embraced the concept of an "independent Romania". Despite its anti-revolutionary bias, the new electoral law again produced a victory for the unionist camps, when it came to voting in the Hospodar.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
In Moldavia, the Elective Assembly was voted in in December 1858, and unanimously selected deputy Alexandru Ioan Cuza for the throne. In Wallachia, conservative unionism took hold with the triumvirate of Caimacams, favoring either Bibescu or Barbu Știrbei: Ioan Manu, Emanoil Băleanu, Ioan A. Filipescu. The Ottoman Empire supported Știrbeist conservatives, but reportedly kept neutral during the actual round of voting.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
The Assembly of Bucharest was elected in January 1859, after which negotiations began about whether Cuza should also be put up as a candidate in Bucharest. The Caimacams made a final attempt at intimidation by ordering Eugeniu Carada to be arrested at Craiova. Although technically a minority in the new chamber, with the vast majority of delegates favoring Bibescu, radical unionists colluded to advance Cuza as the surprise option, and also stoked tensions between the various conservative unionists. Conservatives such as Caimacam Ghica and Catargiu reconciled with each other and also joined the National Party coalition. A guild of tanners entered the assembly hall and forced through the invalidation of seven conservative mandates, then stood their ground menacingly as Cuza was proposed and voted as Hospodar.


1857 Wallachian legislative election, Aftermath
Both Bibescu and Știrbei were slowly made to reconsider under this pressure—they only ceded to, and voted for, Cuza under the assumption that the Ottomans would invalidate this personal union. The Principalities' merger and the name "Romania" were eventually recognized in December 1861, with Cuza styling himself Domnitor rather than Hospodar, and being referred to only as Bey by his overlord, Abdülaziz I. The new firman also provided Cuza with sweeping executive powers, which he immediately used against his conservative Assemblies.


1857 Wisconsin gubernatorial election
The 1857 Wisconsin gubernatorial election was held on November 3, 1857. Republican Party candidate Alexander Randall won the election with just over 50% of the vote, defeating Democratic candidate James B. Cross.


1857 Wisconsin gubernatorial election, Democratic Party
James B. Cross was the incumbent Mayor of Milwaukee at the time of the 1857 gubernatorial election, serving his third consecutive term in that role. He had also represented Milwaukee in the Wisconsin State Assembly for three terms. Cross was a lawyer and had previously served as a probate judge in Milwaukee County. He was a Wisconsin delegate to the 1856 Democratic National Convention.


1857 Wisconsin gubernatorial election, Democratic Party
James B. Cross was nominated on the third ballot at the Wisconsin Democratic Party Convention. He received 89 votes; Jairus C. Fairchild received 37; Francis Huebschmann received 14.


1857 Wisconsin gubernatorial election, Republican Party
Alexander W. Randall was a Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge in Milwaukee prior to the 1857 gubernatorial election, having been appointed by the previous Governor, Coles Bashford. Randall had been an attorney for Governor Bashford in his challenge of the 1855 Wisconsin gubernatorial election results. Earlier, in 1846, Randall had been a delegate to the first Wisconsin constitutional convention and had successfully advocated for including a provision by which African American suffrage could be legalized via referendum. Randall served as a Democrat in the Wisconsin State Assembly in 1855, but became a Republican later that year when he ran unsuccessfully for election to be Attorney General of Wisconsin.


1857 Wisconsin gubernatorial election, Republican Party
Randall became a compromise choice for gubernatorial nominee at the 1857 Wisconsin Republican Convention after delegates became deadlocked between the two leading candidates, Edward Holton and Walter McIndoe.


1857 in Australia
The following lists events that happened during 1857 in Australia.


1857 in Chile
The following lists events that happened during 1857 in Chile.


1857 in New Zealand
The following lists events that happened during 1857 in New Zealand.


1857 in New Zealand, Population
The estimated population of New Zealand at the end of 1857 is 57,150 Māori and 49,802 non-Māori.


1857 in New Zealand, Sport, Horse racing
Two existing clubs combine to form the Auckland Racing Club. The ARC holds its first meeting at Ellerslie Racecourse. (see also 1874)


1857 in South Africa
The following lists events that happened during 1857 in South Africa.


1857 in Switzerland
The following is a list of events, births, and deaths in 1857 in Switzerland.


1857 in Wales
This article is about the particular significance of the year 1857 to Wales and its people.


1857 in art
The following is a list of events from 1857 in art.


1857 in literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1857.


1857 in paleontology
Paleontology or palaeontology (from Greek: paleo, "ancient"; ontos, "being"; and logos, "knowledge") is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1857.


1857 in poetry
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature (for instance, Irish or France).


1857 in poetry, Births
Death years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:


1857 in poetry, Deaths
Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in poetry" article:


1857 in rail transport
This article lists events related to rail transport that occurred in 1857.


1857 in science
The year 1857 in science and technology involved some significant events, listed below.


1857 in sports
1857 in sports describes the year's events in world sport.


1857–1858 Dallas municipal election
The 1857 Dallas municipal election was the second mayoral election in Dallas, Texas. The election was held sometime between late 1857-1858. John M. Crockett won the election, becoming mayor.


1858
1858 (MDCCCLVIII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1858th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 858th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 58th  year of the 19th century, and the  9th   year of the 1850s decade. As of the start of 1858, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


1858 Akaroa by-election
The Akaroa by-election 1858 was a by-election held in the Akaroa electorate during the 2nd New Zealand Parliament, on 31 May 1858. The by-election was caused by the resignation of incumbent MP John Cuff on 12 January 1878.


1858 Akaroa by-election
The election and was won unopposed by William Moorhouse, who had represented the seat in the previous parliament.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season
The 1858 Atlantic hurricane season was one of only three Atlantic hurricane seasons on record in which every tropical cyclone intensified into a hurricane (the others were in 1852 and 1884). The first hurricane was first observed over the northwestern Caribbean Sea on June 12. The sixth and final storm was last noted on October 26. These dates fall within the period with the most tropical cyclone activity in the Atlantic. Three tropical cyclones during the season existed simultaneously. Two of the cyclones have only a single known point in its track due to a sparsity of data.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season
Operationally, another tropical cyclone was believed to have existed over the eastern Atlantic between September 17 and September 18, but HURDAT – the official Atlantic hurricane database – excludes this system. However, in the absence of modern satellite and other remote-sensing technologies, only cyclones that affected populated land areas or encountered ships at sea are currently known, so the actual total could be higher. An undercount bias of zero to four tropical cyclones per year between 1886 and 1910 has been estimated. Of the six known 1858 Atlantic cyclones, five were first documented in 1995 by Jose Fernandez-Partagas and Henry Diaz.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season
The first system was spotted over the western Caribbean Sea on June 12. It had a single-point track. Another tropical cyclone was first observed over the northern Atlantic Ocean on August 5 and also had a single-point track. On September 14, the next system was observed over the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. Several hours later, the storm struck Florida, causing severe damage to crops. Strong winds and rough seas were reported by ships and on land, particularly in Maine. The storm dissipated on September 17. That same day, another tropical cyclone developed over the central Atlantic.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season
The storm capsized the bark Phantom, though no one drowned. The next hurricane developed over the Bahamas on September 22, but caused little damage, despite its proximity to land. On October 21, the sixth and final system of the season was first observed over the Bahamas. The storm brought coastal flooding to Nassau and Bermuda later in its duration, before dissipating on October 26.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane One
On June 12, the brig L. H. Sampson encountered a hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean Sea. The vessel suffered some damage. The storm was a Category 1 hurricane on the modern day Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, based on winds of 80 mph (130 km/h) observed by the L. H. Sampson.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Two
A Category 1 hurricane was first observed about 585 mi (940 km) west-northwest of Corvo Island in the Azores on August 5, based on reports from two ships, the Shelter and the A.Z.Greenland. Another ship that encountered the storm, the Magistrate, was abandoned.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Three
The bark Cavallo encountered experienced severe weather in the eastern Gulf of Mexico between September 13 and September 15. It is believed that a tropical storm developed on September 14. Moving northeastward, the storm made landfall near modern-day Palmetto, Florida at 15:00 UTC, with winds of 70 mph (110 km/h). While crossing the state, the storm brought severe damage. Ships remained in port at river ports in the state and at St. Marys, Georgia. After emerging into the Atlantic Ocean near Oak Hill, Florida early on September 15, the system reached hurricane status several hours later. Shortly thereafter, the storm intensified into a Category 2 hurricane, peaking with winds of 105 mph (165 km/h). On September 16, the hurricane passed offshore North Carolina and then weakened to a Category 1 hurricane while east of the Mid-Atlantic states.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Three
At 17:00 UTC on September 16, the storm made landfall near East Hampton, New York with winds of 80 mph (130 km/h). About an hour later, it struck again just west of Groton, Connecticut with winds of 75 mph (120 km/h). Early on September 17, the system weakened to a tropical storm and dissipated over the Gulf of Saint Lawrence several hours later. Parts of this storm were first described by David M. Ludlum, who called it The New England Tropical Storm of 1858.


1858 Atlantic hurricane season, Systems, Hurricane Three
However, barometer readings taken at Sag Harbor, New York and Providence, Rhode Island, along with ship reports and wind speeds recorded at Bangor, Maine and Nantucket, Massachusetts, conclude that the system reached hurricane intensity. In Maine, strong gales occurred, with Bangor reported having "one of the heaviest in years." Trees and chimneys toppled throughout the southeastern portions of the state. There was also minor damage to shipping in Belfast.