| LEGISLATURE | SLAVEHOLDERS | PLANTERS* |
| North Carolina | 85.8% | 36.6% |
| South Carolina | 81.7 | 55.4 |
| Alabama | 76.3 | 40.8 |
| Mississippi | 73.4 | 49.5 |
| Georgia | 71.6 | 29.0 |
| Virginia | 67.3 | 24.2 |
| Tennessee | 66.0 | 14.0 |
| Louisiana | 63.8 | 23.5 |
| Kentucky | 60.6 | ?8.4 |
| Florida | 55.4 | 20.0 |
| Texas | 54.1 | 18.1 |
| Maryland | 53.4 | 19.3 |
| Arkansas | 42.0 | 13.0 |
| Missouri | 41.2 | ?5.3 |
| *Planters: Owned 20 or more slaves. Date source: Adapted from Ralph A. Wooster, The People in Power: Courthouse and Statehouse in the Lower South, 1850–1860, page 40. Copyright © 1975 by Ralph A. Wooster. Courtesy of the University of Tennessee Press. | ||