Three-fifths compromise

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The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise between Southern and Northern states reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention in which only three-fifths of the population of slaves would be counted for enumeration purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives. It was proposed by delegate James Wilson.

Northern delegates generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. Southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention, on the other hand, generally wanted to count slaves at their actual numbers. Since slaves could not vote, Southern slaveholders would thus have the benefit of increased representation in the House and Electoral College (taxation was only a secondary issue). The final compromise of counting slaves as only three fifths of their actual numbers reduced the power of the slave states but is still generally credited with giving the pro-slavery forces disproportionate political power in the U.S. government from the establishment of the Constitution until the Civil War.

The three-fifths compromise is found in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the United States Constitution:

"Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons."

[edit] Origins

The three-fifths ratio was not a new concept. It originated with a 1783 amendment proposed to the Articles of Confederation. The amendment was to have changed the basis for determining the wealth of each state, and hence its tax obligations, from real estate to population as a measure of ability to produce wealth. The North had proposed counting all the slaves; the South insisted that slaves were not as productive, and suggested counting half the slaves. After proposed compromises of 2/3 and 3/4 failed to gain sufficient support, Congress finally settled on the three-fifths ratio proposed by James Madison. Though this amendment failed by falling two states short of the unanimous approval required for amending the Articles (only New Hampshire and New York opposing it), the ratio was a ready solution to the impasse in the Constitutional Convention. Notice, however, that the situation was quite different in the Constitutional Convention. In amending the Articles of Confederation, the North wanted slaves to count for more than the South did because this was to determine taxes paid by the states to the federal government. In the Constitutional Convention, the more important issue was representation, so the South wanted slaves to count for more than the North did.

[edit] Superseded

Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1865), the three-fifths clause was rendered moot. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868) later superseded Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3. It specifically states that "Representatives shall be apportioned ...counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed..."