House of Representatives statistics

House of Representatives statistics at a glance

The House of Representatives began with a small chamber and kept changing quickly across the early Congresses. The figures below show how the seat count and the leading party bloc evolved from the 1st Congress through the 25th Congress, using the House History party divisions figures in the source statistics.

Quick takeaways

• The House moved from 65 seats in the 1st Congress to 242 seats in the 24th and 25th Congresses (House History party divisions).
• The dominant faction changed repeatedly as the chamber expanded, from Pro-Administration members to Federalists, then Democratic Republicans, Adams-Clay Republicans, Adams Jacksonians, Anti-Jacksonians, and Democrats (House History party divisions).
• Several Congresses held the seat count steady at 106 or 142 seats before later jumps to 182, 183, 185, 186, 187, 213, 240, and 242 seats (House History party divisions).

Table of contents

• Early growth in House seats
• How the leading faction changed
• Congress-by-Congress comparison
• What the numbers show over time
• Patterns in the chamber

Early growth in House seats

The first part of the sequence shows a House that was still finding its scale. The 1st Congress had 65 House seats, and the 2nd Congress had 69 House seats (House History party divisions). That is a modest increase, but the chamber did not stay near that level for long.

By the 3rd Congress, the House had 105 seats (House History party divisions). The 4th, 5th, and 6th Congresses then held at 106 seats each (House History party divisions). That stability matters because it creates a baseline: once the chamber settled at 106, the next expansions stand out more clearly.

The 7th Congress still had 106 House seats (House History party divisions), but the 8th Congress jumped to 142 House seats (House History party divisions). That is one of the clearest early expansion points in the sequence. From there, the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th Congresses stayed at 142, 142, 142, and 143 seats respectively (House History party divisions). The House then moved to 182 seats in the 13th Congress and 183 seats in the 14th Congress (House History party divisions).

That early pattern shows a chamber that expanded in steps rather than in a straight line. The number of seats often held flat for more than one Congress before the next change appeared.

House size did not rise evenly; it moved in blocks, pauses, and jumps (House History party divisions).

How the leading faction changed

The same historical span also shows major changes in the leading group inside the House. The 1st Congress had 37 Pro-Administration members, and the 2nd Congress had 39 Pro-Administration members (House History party divisions). The 3rd Congress then had 51 Pro-Administration members (House History party divisions).

After that, the label changed. The 4th Congress had 47 Federalists, the 5th had 57 Federalists, and the 6th had 60 Federalists (House History party divisions). That progression shows the Federalist bloc becoming the main leading group in that stretch.

The 7th Congress had 68 Democratic Republicans (House History party divisions). That marks a clear shift in the leading faction. The 8th Congress then had 103 Democratic Republicans, and the 9th had 114 Democratic Republicans (House History party divisions). The 10th Congress had 116 Democratic Republicans, and the 11th had 92 Democratic Republicans (House History party divisions). The 12th Congress had 107 Democratic Republicans (House History party divisions).

Later on, the party labels changed again. The 18th Congress had 72 Adams-Clay Republicans (House History party divisions). The 19th Congress had 109 Adams Jacksonians, and the 20th had 100 Adams Jacksonians (House History party divisions). The 21st and 22nd Congresses had 72 and 66 Anti-Jacksonians, respectively (House History party divisions). The 23rd Congress had 63 Anti-Jacksonians, and the 24th and 25th Congresses had 75 and 128 Democrats, respectively (House History party divisions).

The labels show that the House?s leading bloc was not fixed. It changed with the political alignments of the time, and the counts show how large each leading group was in its Congress.

Congress-by-Congress comparison

A compact comparison makes the pattern easier to read.

Congress	House seats	Leading group	Leading group count
1st Congress	65	Pro-Administration	37
2nd Congress	69	Pro-Administration	39
3rd Congress	105	Pro-Administration	51
4th Congress	106	Federalists	47
5th Congress	106	Federalists	57
6th Congress	106	Federalists	60
7th Congress	106	Democratic Republicans	68
8th Congress	142	Democratic Republicans	103
9th Congress	142	Democratic Republicans	114
10th Congress	142	Democratic Republicans	116
11th Congress	142	Democratic Republicans	92
12th Congress	143	Democratic Republicans	107
13th Congress	182	Democratic Republicans	114
14th Congress	183	Democratic Republicans	119
15th Congress	185	Democratic Republicans	146
16th Congress	186	Democratic Republicans	160
17th Congress	187	Democratic Republicans	155
18th Congress	213	Adams-Clay Republicans	72
19th Congress	213	Adams Jacksonians	109
20th Congress	213	Adams Jacksonians	100
21st Congress	213	Anti-Jacksonians	72
22nd Congress	213	Anti-Jacksonians	66
23rd Congress	240	Anti-Jacksonians	63
24th Congress	242	Democrats	75
25th Congress	242	Democrats	128

This table shows the broadest movement in one view. The House went from 65 seats in the 1st Congress to 242 seats in the 24th and 25th Congresses (House History party divisions). The leading group count also varied substantially, from 37 Pro-Administration members in the 1st Congress to 160 Democratic Republicans in the 16th Congress, and later to 128 Democrats in the 25th Congress (House History party divisions).

What the numbers show over time

One useful way to read the sequence is by looking at seat plateaus. The House sat at 106 seats for the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th Congresses (House History party divisions). That means four consecutive Congresses shared the same size.

Another plateau appears at 142 seats for the 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th Congresses (House History party divisions). The 12th Congress then nudged up to 143 seats (House History party divisions). That is a near-stable span with only a one-seat change at the end.

The next block is larger and more dramatic. The House rose to 182 seats in the 13th Congress, 183 in the 14th, 185 in the 15th, 186 in the 16th, and 187 in the 17th (House History party divisions). This sequence shows the House adding seats in small increments over several Congresses.

After that, the chamber reached 213 seats in the 18th Congress and stayed at 213 through the 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd Congresses (House History party divisions). That is another long plateau, this time across five Congresses. The next jump came in the 23rd Congress at 240 seats, followed by 242 seats in the 24th and 25th Congresses (House History party divisions).

The leading bloc counts also show plateaus and step changes. The Pro-Administration figures rose from 37 to 39 to 51 across the 1st to 3rd Congresses (House History party divisions). The Federalists then moved from 47 to 57 to 60 in the 4th to 6th Congresses (House History party divisions). The Democratic Republicans then took much larger counts, including 103, 114, 116, 92, 107, 114, 119, 146, 160, and 155 across the 8th to 17th Congresses (House History party divisions).

That sequence suggests that the leading bloc became larger and more numerous as the House grew. It also shows that leading group count did not rise in a straight line, even when the chamber size increased.

Patterns in the chamber

The statistics point to a few repeatable patterns.

1. Seat growth came in bursts

The House did not grow smoothly each time. Instead, it often held a seat total across multiple Congresses and then moved sharply upward. Examples include 106 seats across the 4th through 7th Congresses and 142 seats across the 8th through 11th Congresses (House History party divisions).

2. Party labels changed as the chamber expanded

The leading group moved through several labels in sequence: Pro-Administration, Federalists, Democratic Republicans, Adams-Clay Republicans, Adams Jacksonians, Anti-Jacksonians, and Democrats (House History party divisions). That progression is a reminder that the numerical record is also a record of political reorganization.

3. The leading bloc often occupied a large share of the chamber

In the early years, 37 Pro-Administration members were paired with 65 House seats in the 1st Congress (House History party divisions). Later, 160 Democratic Republicans were paired with 186 House seats in the 16th Congress (House History party divisions). And by the 25th Congress, 128 Democrats sat in a chamber with 242 House seats (House History party divisions). These pairings show how the leading faction’s size moved alongside the total membership.

4. The later Congresses show the biggest chamber sizes in the set

The largest seat totals in the sequence are 240 in the 23rd Congress and 242 in the 24th and 25th Congresses (House History party divisions). Those figures are more than triple the 65 seats shown in the 1st Congress (House History party divisions). The rise is not just a headline number; it changes the scale of every comparison in the table.

5. Repeated levels make it easier to spot turning points

Because the sequence includes repeated seat totals, the changes stand out. You can see long stretches at 106, 142, and 213 seats, then sharp steps to 240 and 242 seats (House History party divisions). Those plateaus are useful markers when tracking the chamber over time.

A shorter reading of the sequence

If you want the most compact reading of the data, it looks like this:

• 1st to 3rd Congresses: the House moved from 65 to 105 seats while Pro-Administration members remained the leading group, rising from 37 to 51 (House History party divisions).
• 4th to 7th Congresses: the House sat around 106 seats while Federalists and then Democratic Republicans led the chamber, with 47, 57, 60, and 68 as the leading-group counts (House History party divisions).
• 8th to 17th Congresses: the House expanded from 142 to 187 seats while Democratic Republicans became the dominant group, reaching 160 members in the 16th Congress (House History party divisions).
• 18th to 25th Congresses: the chamber rose to 213, then 240, then 242 seats while the leading labels shifted from Adams-Clay Republicans to Adams Jacksonians, Anti-Jacksonians, and finally Democrats (House History party divisions).

Why this dataset is useful

The value of these statistics is in the structure they reveal. They let you see the House not as a fixed institution, but as a chamber whose size and dominant factions changed over time. The seat counts tell one story, and the party divisions tell another, and the two together make the sequence more readable than either one alone (House History party divisions).

For a quick historical scan, the biggest numbers matter most: 65 seats in the 1st Congress, 142 seats across the 8th through 11th Congresses, 213 seats across the 18th through 22nd Congresses, and 242 seats in the 24th and 25th Congresses (House History party divisions). But the smaller transitions matter too, because they show how the chamber moved between those larger plateaus.

The same is true for the leading blocs. Counting 37 Pro-Administration members, 60 Federalists, 160 Democratic Republicans, 109 Adams Jacksonians, 63 Anti-Jacksonians, and 128 Democrats gives you a quick sense of how the House changed internally over time (House History party divisions).

What emerges is a long sequence of growth, regrouping, and redefinition. The statistics are simple on their face, but together they show the chamber evolving in size and composition across the early and mid sequences of Congresses (House History party divisions).