attempted. I know that it is claimed that the
population of the different States at the time of their admission has
varied at different periods, but it has not varied much more than the
population of each decade and the corresponding basis of representation
for the different periods.

The obvious intent of the Constitution was that no State should be
admitted with a less population than the ratio for a Representative at
the time of application. The limitation in the second section of the
first article of the Constitution, declaring that "each State shall have
at least one Representative," was manifestly designed to protect the
States which originally composed the Union from being deprived, in
the event of a waning population, of a voice in the popular branch of
Congress, and was never intended as a warrant to force a new State into
the Union with a representative population far below that which might at
the time be required of sister members of the Confederacy. This bill, in
view of the prohibition of the same section, which declares that "the
number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every 30,000," is at
least a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Constitution.

It is respectfully submitted that however Congress, under the pressure
of circumstances, may have admitted two or three States with less than
a representative population at the time, there has been no instance in
which an application for admission has ever been entertained when the
population, as officially ascertained, was below 30,000.

Were there any doubt of this being the true construction of the
Constitution, it would be dispelled by the early and long-continued
practice of the Federal Government. For nearly sixty years after the
adoption of the Constitution no State was admitted with a population
believed at the time to be less than the current ratio for a
Representative, and the first instance in which there appears to have
been a departure from the principle was in 1845, in the case of Florida.
Obviously the result of sectional strife, we would do well to regard it
as a warning of evil rather than as an example for imitation; and I
think candid men of all parties will agree that the inspiring cause of
the violation of this wholesome principle of restraint is to be found
in a vain attempt to balance these antagonisms, which refused to be
reconciled except through the bloody arbitrament of arms. The plain
facts of our history will