The Republicans were worried as 1870 approached. The Three Fifths Compromise of the Constitution limited how many Representatives the Southern States received from their slave population, but they had still managed to greatly influence national politics in the half century since the Democrats had split from the First Republican Party. The Third Republican Party feared that if the Democrats continued to seek ways to disenfranchise their freedmen, the 1870 census would simply give them what they had always wanted. Full representation accounting for all the people in their States, but with the votes controlled entirely by the former slave owners. The combined population of the Southern States would grant them domination of national politics should that happen. And Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia were about to reenter the Union and add their representatives to the mix. The Republicans had to stave off the disenfranchisement of the former slaves if they were going to have any chance of placing a cork in the Democrats’ political machine. So they passed the 15th Amendment that banned taking away anybody’s vote based on race, color, or their former status as slaves.