At the beginning of the nation in 1790, the population of the north
and the south was almost exactly balanced. Steadily, however, the
free states drew ahead, until in 1820 they possessed a population of
5,152,000 against 4,485,000 for the slave-holding states and
territories; and in the House of Representatives, by the operation
of the three-fifths ratio, the free states could muster 105 votes to
but 81 for the slave states. Thus power had passed definitely to the
north in the House of Representatives. The instinct for self-
preservation that led the planters to stand out against an
apportionment in their legislatures which would throw power into the
hands of non-slaveholders now led them to seek for some means to
protect the interests of their minority section in the nation as a
whole. The Senate offered such an opportunity: by the alternate
admission of free and slave states from 1802 to 1818, out of the
twenty-two states of the nation eleven were slave-holding and eleven
free. If the south retained this balance, the Senate could block the
action of the majority which controlled the lower House.
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