The political influence of the free negro was also a factor in this change. From 1810 to 1820 there was an increase of 108 per cent in free negroes and 266 per cent increase in the period from 1820 to 1830. In 1830, there were twenty counties containing almost one hundred free negroes each; five, two hundred each; four, two hundred and fifty each; three, three hundred each; two, four hundred each; and one containing about five hundred. The greatest number of free negroes in any one county was in Davidson County, and it was a delegate from this county that made the motion in the convention of 1834 to disfranchise the free negro. There were at this time about six hundred free negroes in Davidson County, and there were 471 in 1830 and 794 in 1840.[55] Hon. John Petit, United States Senator from Indiana, said on the floor of the Senate, May 25, 1854, in the debate on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, that “Old Cave Johnson, an honored and respectable gentleman, formerly Postmaster-General, and for a long time a member of the other house, told me, with his own lips, that the first time he was elected to Congress from Tennessee, it was by the vote of free negroes, and he was an iron manufacturer, and had a large number of free negroes, as well as slaves, in his employ. I well recollect the number he stated. One hundred and forty-five free negroes in his employ, went to the ballot box, and elected him to Congress the first time he was elected.”[56] Charles Sumner said he heard John Bell make the same confession with regard to his election.[57] It is further claimed that, during political campaigns in Tennessee, “The opposing candidates for the nonce, oblivious of social distinction and intent only on catching votes, hobnobbed with the men and swung corners all with dusky damsels at election balls.”[58] The fact that the Constitutional Convention of 1834 by resolution excluded the free negro from voting on ratification of the constitution shows that his vote was a factor in close elections. Judge Catron in the case of Fisher’s Negroes v. Dabbs said: “The free negro’s vote at the polls is of as high value as that of any man.”[59] D. _Suffrage in the Convention of 1834._ The contest over disfranchising the free negro in the convention of 1834 presents the final phase of the suffrage problem. Amendments to the constitution of 1796, favoring and opposing negro suffrage, were introduced in the convention and by June 26 were being debated in the committee of the whole. One of the strongest advocates of suffrage for the negro was Mr. Cahall, who said he was “unwilling to disfranchise any man black or white, who had enjoyed the right of suffrage under the present constitution.”[60]