The presiding officer of each branch was a Southerner.

Out of 64 members of the Senate, 39 were Democrats, 20 Republicans, and five Americans or Know-Nothings.

Of the 237 members of the House, 131 were Democrats, 92 Republicans, and 14 Americans.

Here was a clear majority of fourteen in the upper and twenty-five in the lower House.
This was indeed no longer the formidable legislative power which repealed the Missouri Compromise, but it seemed perhaps a sufficient force to carry out the President's recommendation.

His error was in forgetting that this apparent popular indorsement was secured to him and his party by means of the double construction placed upon the Nebraska bill and the Cincinnati platform, by the caucus bargain between the leaders of the South and the leaders of the North.