The New Congressional Apportionment

The following table shows the number of Members assigned to each State, under the census of 1850 and that of 1860:

	1850	1860
Alabama	7	6
Arkansas	2	3
California	2	3
Connecticut	4	4
Delaware	1	1
Florida	1	1
Georgia	8	7
Illinois	9	14
Indiana	11	11
Iowa	2	6
Kansas	1	1
Kentucky	10	9
Louisiana	4	5
Maine	6	5
Maryland	6	5
Massachusetts	11	10
Mississippi	5	5
Missouri	7	9
Michigan	4	6
Minnesota	2	2
N. Hampshire	3	3
New Jersey	5	5
New York	33	31
North Carolina	8	7
Ohio	21	19
Oregon	1	1
Pennsylvania	25	24
Rhode Island	2	2
South Carolina	6	4
Tennessee	10	8
Texas	2	4
Vermont	3	3
Virginia	13	11
Wisconsin	3	6
Total	238	241

By the above table it will be seen that Iowa trebles her representation, a pro rata increase one-third larger than any State in the Union.  Wisconsin and Texas double their numbers, while the Southern States generally loose.  Illinois has the largest increase.  In the present Congress the West, including Missouri, has sixty members.  In the next she will have seventy-four.  The slave States – Missouri excepted, which forms one of the cordon of western States, and whose destiny it is to be free – have now eighty-three seats in the House of Representatives.  According to the new apportionment they will have but seventy-six.  This table is interesting as showing the rapid progress of free over the slave States.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Friday Morning, March 14, 1862, p. 2