Gerrymandering, the process of redefining political boundries to marginalize one class for eletoral benefit was started by the Northern states: "However, with industrial expansion in the North and immigration from Europe, by 1850 less than one-third of the country’s occupants lived in the South. Since the number of members eligible for election to the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress depends on state population, the North’s explosive growth brought a majority of Northerners to the House. Consequently, Southern political strategists strove to maintain parity in the Senate, where regardless of population’s size, only two representatives were allowed for each state. Thus, the Southerners fought to have “slave, not slave-free new states” enter the Union. As Jefferson Davis, then a senator from Mississippi, said to the Northerners about the slavery issue: “It is not humanity that influences you ... it is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the Government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement ... you want by an unjust system of legislation to promote the industry of the United States at the expense of people in the South.”

Taylor R.B. (2008) Diseases That Changed History. In: White Coat Tales. Springer, New York, NY P 69