 Complete the following phrase:  An election for speaker took place over the course of two months, December 3, 1855 through February 2, 1856, at the start of the 34th Congress, following the 185455 elections in which candidates primarily in Northern states running on various fusion ticketsincluded members from the Whig, Free Soil and American parties, along with members of the nascent Republican Partygrouped together under the Opposition Party label, won a majority of the seats. This new, but transitional, party sprang-up amid the fallout from the KansasNebraska Act approved by Congress in mid 1854, which had sparked 