Читать книгу American Civil War For Dummies - Keith D. Dickson - Страница 20

Southerners sought to preserve the political status quo. By the 1850s the Senate became the only legislative body on which the South could rely to maintain a balance of power. Because every state had two senators, regardless of population (so says Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution), Southern senators could block anti-slavery legislation coming from the Northern majority in the House of Representatives. Increasingly, bills were introduced into the House proposing all sorts of measures to end slavery or limit its expansion any further. So, for the ten years between 1850 and 1860, the North and the South waged a political struggle to gain an advantage or maintain the current balance of power by bringing in new states allied with one region or the other.