The Know Nothing Speaker

In 1855, President Franklin Pierce had managed to infuriate the public.  Not only did he sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act that led to Bleeding Kansas, he had also floated the idea of purchasing Cuba from Spain to allow the South to expand.  In fact, if Spain didn't sell, maybe the US should just seize it!  The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was officially dead.  The Whigs, who were not an abolitionist party, couldn't really take advantage of this situation.  Throughout the country, different parties opposed the Democrats.

In the election, the Democrats were clobbered.  Though they retained control of the Senate, they had lost 74 seats in the House, going from 156 representatives to 82.  It should be noted that there were only 234 seats at the time.  The American Party - also called the Know Nothing Party - captured 51 seats, which made it the second largest block.  A variety of other parties (the Constitutional Union Party, the nascent Republican Party, and the remaining Whigs in the process of reformation, anti-slavery Democrats, etc.) organized themselves as the Opposition Party and caucused with the Know Nothings.  With this jumbled multi-party majority - a first in American history, the problem of selecting a Speaker of the House arose.  

While it took 4 days and 15 votes in the House to confirm Kevin McCarthy as Speaker in 2023, that is nothing compared to 1855-56.  It took 2 months and 133 votes to select Nathaniel Banks as the Speaker of the House on February 2, 1856.  Though he had long been a Democrat - albeit from Massachusetts, the Kansas-Nebraska Act led him to leave the party and join the American Party.  He eventually became a Republican and fought for the Union during the Civil War.