Slave Power, also called the Slave Power conspiracy and Slaveocracy, was a term first used by abolitionists in 1839 and was in common use by the 1850s. It referred to the economic, social and political influence held by slaveholders in the Southern United States. Southern slaveholders had a great deal power in Congress and many other federal offices up to and including the presidency. This is in spite of the fact they made up only a small minority of the population of the nation. These few very powerful men used their influence to maintain the institution of slavery. The fear in the North was that the slave power conspiracy intended to not only to spread slavery to the Western territories but to all the states in the North.