Hinton Rowan Helper made extensive use of the 1850 census results in his influential anti-slavery book The Impending Crisis of the South (1857).

Some of the data revealed the growth of the economy with regard to agricultural and manufactured production, international trade, federal debt, taxation, transportation, education, and land expansion.

The statistics in this census provide data on the rate of growth that was taking place in 1850, which resulted in the emergence of the United States as an economic world power.

Aggregate data for small areas, together with compatible cartographic boundary files, can be downloaded from the National Historical Geographic Information System.

[11] The controversy contributed to Harris' decision to join other Runaway Officials of 1851 and abandon his post in Utah Territory.