The voters returned Sherman to office for a third term during 1858. After a brief special session in March 1859, the 36th Congress adjourned, and Sherman and his wife went on vacation to Europe. When they returned that December, the situation was similar to that of four years earlier: no party had an absolute majority. Republicans held 109 seats, Democrats 101, and the combination of Oppositionists and Know Nothings 27. Again, sectional tension had increased while Congress was in recess, this time due to John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The election for Speaker of the House promised to be contentious. This time, Sherman was among the leading candidates, receiving the second-largest number of votes on the first ballot, with no candidate receiving a majority. The election for Speaker was sidetracked immediately by a furor over an anti-slavery book, "The Impending Crisis of the South", written by Hinton Rowan Helper and endorsed by many Republican members. Southerners accused Sherman of having endorsed the book, while he protested that he only endorsed its use as a campaign tool and had never read it. After two months of balloting, no decision had been reached. After their attempts to adopt a plurality rule failed, Sherman accepted that he could not be elected, and withdrew. Republicans then shifted their support to William Pennington, who was elected on the forty-fourth ballot.