Federal Representation.
The present number of the House of Representatives, including Texas is 228. Of these 21 represent slave property. In fixing the ratio of representation, after the last census, the House adopted that of 50,179. This would have given a House of 306 members, and the free States a majority of 68. But a small majority is more easily managed than a large. The Senate rejected that ratio and sent back the bill with the ratio of 70,680. This reduced the House to 223 and brought down the majority of the free States to the more manageable number of 47. The effect of the odd number, 680, was to deprive the four great States of the north, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, of one member each, with no corresponding disadvantage to any slave State. Of this proceeding, even the correspondent of the New York Herald said,—“The Senate apportionment has robbed the North of at least one quarter of its practical influence in the Union, when regarded in its full extent; and the members of the free States who voted for it, have thus surrendered the rights of their constituents, and violated their trusts.”