376 NECK AND NECK. 



irrespectively of size and population. In the Lower 

 House the States were merely sections of the country : 

 population was the standard of the voting power. 

 The South had a smaller population than the North : 

 the Southerners were therefore a natural minority, and 

 only preserved their influence by allying themselves 

 with the States' Rights party in the North. The Free 

 States were divided : the Slave States voted as one man. 

 In the North politics was a question of sentiment, 

 and sentiments naturally differ. In the South politics 

 was a matter of life and death ; their bread depended 

 on cotton ; their cotton depended on slaves ; their 

 slaves depended on the balance of power. The history 

 of the South within the Union is that of a people 

 struggling for existence by means of political devices 

 against the spirit of the nation and the spirit of the age. 

 By annexation, purchase, and extension, they kept pace 

 with the North in its rush towards the West. Free States 

 and Slave states ran neck and neck towards the shores 

 of the Pacific. The North obtained Vermont, Ohio, In- 

 diana, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin and 

 California. The South obtained Tennessee, Kentucky, 

 Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, 

 Florida and Texas. Whenever a territory became a 

 state, the nation possessed the power of rejecting and 

 therefore of modifying its constitution. The northern 

 politicians made an effort to prohibit slavery in all new 

 states ; the South as usual threatened to secede, and 

 the Union which had been manufactured by a com- 

 promise was preserved by a compromise. It was agreed 

 that a line should be drawn to the Pacific along the 

 parallel 36° 30'; that all the states which should 

 afterwards be made below the line should be slave- 

 holding ; and all that were made above it shoidd be free. 



