The constitution of the United States declares that "representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union according to their respective numbers;" and that "the number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative." Construing the constitution to authorize a process by which the whole number of representatives should be ascertained on the whole population of the United States, and afterwards "apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers," the senate applied the number thirty thousand as a _divisor_ to the total population, and taking the _quotient_, which was one hundred and twenty, as the number of representatives given by the ratio which had been adopted in the house where the bill had originated, they apportioned that number among the several states by that ratio, until as many representatives as it would give were allotted to each. The residuary members were then distributed among the states having the highest fractions. Without professing the principle on which this apportionment was made, the amendment of the senate merely allotted to the states respectively, the number of members which the process just mentioned would give. The result was a more equitable apportionment of representatives to population, and had the rule of construing that instrument been correct, the amendment removed objections which were certainly well founded. But the rule was novel, and overturned opinions which had been generally assumed, and were supposed to be settled. In one branch of the legislature it had already been rejected; and in the other, the majority in its favour was only one. In the house of representatives, the amendment was supported with considerable ingenuity. After an earnest debate, however, it was disagreed to, and a conference took place without producing an accommodation among the members composing the committee. But finally, the house of representatives receded from their disagreement; and, by a majority of two voices, the bill passed as amended in the senate. On the President, the solemn duty of deciding, whether an act of the legislature consisted with the constitution; for the bill, if constitutional, was unexceptionable. In his cabinet, also, a difference of opinion is understood to have existed; the secretary of state and the attorney general were of opinion that the act was at variance with the constitution; the secretary of war was rather undecided; and the secretary of the treasury, thinking that, from the vagueness of expression in the clause relating to the subject, neither construction could be absolutely rejected, was in favour of acceding to the interpretation given by the legislature.