The 1860–61 United States House of Representatives elections were held at various dates in different states from August 1860 to October 1861. In November 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the Presidency. Though Republicans lost seats, the party won a House majority anyway as seven slave states reacted to Lincoln's election by seceding before the Presidential inauguration. These seceding states formed the Confederacy in February 1861 while withdrawing many Representatives and Senators from Congress, almost all Democrats. As both sides in the impending American Civil War initially mobilized troops, another four slave states seceded by May 1861 in response to Lincoln's policy of using Federal force to defend Federal property and to coerce the seven initially seceding states. The four remai