had immigrated to the United States. The "unimpassioned" speech sought to reinforce an American identity and made no mention of his Norwegian roots. It coincided with his campaign for U.S. representative from Minnesota's third district. By then, Nelson had developed the strategy of orchestrating a "bottoms-up" campaign in which he would quietly enlist supporters to publicly encourage him to run, while appearing reluctant. His constituency in the Upper Country frontier put him at a disadvantage with respect to the rivaling Twin Cities. After having flexed his political muscle by "bolting" from the campaign for a few weeks, he supported the Republican nomination of Jacob Stewart, a medical doctor from St. Paul, who won the election against Democrat William McNair. This endorsement was not backed by the Norwegian-American community, who were concerned about Stewart's association with the Know Nothing Party and the apparent rise of a ruling class in society. The battle for the "Bloody Fifth" As a result of the 1880 census, the United States Congress decided to allocate a new congressional seat to the Upper Country, creating the Fifth Minnesota District. Nelson quietly entered the race for this seat. First he secured a seat on the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota, where he managed to establish a Department of Scandinavian Studies. The campaign opened in 1882 and quickly devolved into one of the most contentious elections in history at that point. The contest between Nelson and Charles F. Kindred for the "Bloody Fifth", as it became known, involved widespread graft, intimidation, and election fraud. The Republican convention on July 12 in Detroit Lakes was compared to the historic Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. 150 delegates fought over 80 seats, and after a scuffle in the main conference center, the Kindred and Nelson campaigns nominated their candidates. The rivalry between Kindred and Nelson centered to a large extent on the two competing railroads in the Upper Country, the Northern Pacific in Kindred's corner and the Great Northern in Nelson's. Kindred spent between $150,000 and $200,000, but Nelson won handily, overcoming massive election fraud in Northern Pacific counties. U.S. House of Representatives, 1883–1889 Nelson served in the United States House of Representatives from March 4, 1883, to March 4, 1889, in the 48th, 49th, and 50th congresses. In keeping with practices of the Gilded Age, his first agenda item in Congress was to ensure patronage for his