According to the last census the aggregate population of the United States amounted to 17,063,357, of which the northern section contained 9,728,920, and the southern 7,334,437, making a difference in round numbers, of 2,400,000.  The number of States had increased from sixteen to twenty-six, making an addition of ten States.  In the meantime the position of Delaware had become doubtful as to which section she properly belonged.  Considering her as neutral, the Northern States will have thirteen and the Southern States twelve, making a difference in the Senate of two senators in favor of the former.  According to the apportionment under the census of 1840, there were two hundred and twenty-three members of the House of Representatives, of which the North-ern States had one hundred and thirty-five, and the Southern States (considering Delaware as neutral) eighty-seven, making a difference in favor of the former in the House of Representatives of forty-eight.  The difference in the Senate of two members, added to this, gives to the North in the Electoral College, a majority of fifty.  Since the census of 1840, four States have been added to the Union—­Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas.  They leave the difference in the Senate as it was when the census was taken; but add two to the side of the North in the House, making the present majority in the House in its favor fifty, and in the Electoral College fifty-two.

The result of the whole is to give the northern section a predominance in every department of the Government, and thereby concentrate in it the two elements which constitute the Federal Government,—­majority of States, and a majority of their population, estimated in federal numbers.  Whatever section concentrates the two in itself possesses the control of the entire Government.

But we are just at the close of the sixth decade, and the commencement of the seventh.  The census is to be taken this year, which must add greatly to the decided preponderance of the North in the House of Representatives and in the Electoral College.  The prospect is, also, that a great increase will be added to its present preponderance in the Senate, during the period of the decade, by the addition of new States.  Two territories, Oregon and Minnesota, are already in progress, and strenuous efforts are making to bring in three additional States’ from the territory recently conquered from Mexico; which, if successful, will add three other States in a short time to the northern section, making five States; and increasing the present number of its States from fifteen to twenty, and of its senators from thirty to forty.  On the contrary, there is not a single territory in progress in the southern section, and no certainty that any additional State will be added to it during the decade.  The prospect then is, that the two sections in the senate, should the effort now made to exclude the South from the newly acquired territories succeed, will stand before the end of the