25 AUGUST 1866, Page 3

A very important fact in relation to the reconstruction of

the United States seems to have escaped notice on this side. It is :simply this, that by an Act passed in 1850 the number of representatives in Congress was limited to 233. New States admitted subsequently to the decennial census have representa- tives on the basis of the ratio of representatives to population for the time being, but the excess must be corrected at the next census. As emancipation makes the three-fifths rule inapplicable, all the negroes in the South come in as population, and the South would, if no condition were made, have more representatives than they had before the war, while the limit settled by law would be exceeded.