The Thirty-Ninth Congress Included Persons Illegally Present in the United States in the Basis of Representation

Michael L. Rosin You need to know only one number from the 1860 census in order to understand why Northern Republicans in the Thirty-Ninth Congress so expansively embraced aliens in the basis of representation they were reshaping for the apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives. The 1860 census counted only 6% of the foreign born residing in the eleven states that would rise in rebellion. The remaining 94% of the foreign born resided in the states that did not. (See p. xxix. For further details see pp. 85–87.) Any proposal to exclude significant numbers of the foreign born from the basis of representation would shift power away from the loyal states to the states that had risen in rebellion. There was, however, one segment of the foreign born who resided almost entirely in the states that had risen in rebellion: enslaved persons of color brought into the United States in contravention of the 1807 Slave Trade Act. The 1819 Slave Trade Act “authorized” the President of the…