Senator Garrett Davis of Kentucky, in protest of the current drive to abolish slavery by constitutional amendment, proposed in the U.S. Senate to limit what he considered to be the excessive influence of New England over national affairs. He mooted the consolidation of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont into the one state of "North New England" and Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island into another, to be called "South New England." He never brought the proposal to a vote and it made no progress in the Senate or elsewhere. (By John Osborne)