The
Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise between
SouthernGeographically, Old South is a subregion of the American South, differentiated from the "Deep South" as being the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies, as well as a way of describing the former lifestyle in the Southern United States...
and
Northern statesThe Northeastern United States is a region of the United States. According to the definition used by the United States Census Bureau, the Northeast region consists of nine states: the New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut; and the...
reached during the
Philadelphia ConventionThe Philadelphia Convention took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of...
of 1787 in which three-fifths of the population of
slaveSlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation...
s would be counted for
enumerationThe United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding...
purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the
apportionmentApportionment is the process of allocating political power among a set of principles . In most representative governments, political power has most recently been apportioned among constituencies based on population, but there is a long history of different approaches.The United States Constitution,...
of the members of the
United States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
. It was proposed by delegates
James WilsonJames Wilson , was a Scottish lawyer, most notable as a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence...
and
Roger ShermanRoger Sherman was an early American lawyer and politician. He served as the first mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, and served on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and was also a representative and senator in the new republic.He was the only person to sign all four...
.
Delegates opposed to
slaverySlavery in the United States lasted as a legal institution until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865...
generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state.
The
Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise between
SouthernGeographically, Old South is a subregion of the American South, differentiated from the "Deep South" as being the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies, as well as a way of describing the former lifestyle in the Southern United States...
and
Northern statesThe Northeastern United States is a region of the United States. According to the definition used by the United States Census Bureau, the Northeast region consists of nine states: the New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut; and the...
reached during the
Philadelphia ConventionThe Philadelphia Convention took place from May 25 to September 17, 1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to address problems in governing the United States of America, which had been operating under the Articles of...
of 1787 in which three-fifths of the population of
slaveSlavery is a form of forced labor in which people are considered to be the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to receive compensation...
s would be counted for
enumerationThe United States Census is a decennial census mandated by the United States Constitution. The population is enumerated every 10 years and the results are used to allocate Congressional seats , electoral votes, and government program funding...
purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the
apportionmentApportionment is the process of allocating political power among a set of principles . In most representative governments, political power has most recently been apportioned among constituencies based on population, but there is a long history of different approaches.The United States Constitution,...
of the members of the
United States House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
. It was proposed by delegates
James WilsonJames Wilson , was a Scottish lawyer, most notable as a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence...
and
Roger ShermanRoger Sherman was an early American lawyer and politician. He served as the first mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, and served on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and was also a representative and senator in the new republic.He was the only person to sign all four...
.
Delegates opposed to
slaverySlavery in the United States lasted as a legal institution until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865...
generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. Delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, generally wanted to count slaves in their actual numbers. Since slaves could not vote, slaveholders would thus have the benefit of increased representation in the
HouseThe United States House of Representatives, commonly referred to as the "House," is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, the upper house being the United States Senate. The composition and powers of the House and the Senate are established in Article One of the Constitution...
and the Electoral College; taxation was only a secondary issue. The final compromise of counting "
all other persons" as only three-fifths of their actual numbers reduced the power of the slave states relative to the original southern proposals, but increased it over the northern position.
The three-fifths compromise is found in Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 of the
United States ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States...
:
Background
The three-fifths ratio was not a new concept. It originated with a 1783 amendment proposed to the
Articles of ConfederationThe Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, commonly referred to as the Articles of Confederation, was the first constitution of the United States of America and legally established the union of the states. The Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft the Articles in June...
. 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 proposal by a committee of the Congress had suggested that taxes "shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes."
The South immediately objected to this formula since it would include slaves, who were viewed primarily as property, in calculating the amount of taxes to be paid. As
Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States , the principal author of the Declaration of Independence , and one of the most influential Founding Fathers for his promotion of the ideals of republicanism in the United States...
wrote in his notes on the debates, the southern states would be taxed "according to their numbers and their wealth conjunctly, while the northern would be taxed on numbers only."
After proposed compromises of 1/2 by Benjamin Harrison of Virginia and 3/4 by several New Englanders failed to gain sufficient support, Congress finally settled on the three-fifths ratio proposed by
James MadisonJames Madison was an American politician and political philosopher who served as the fourth President of the United States , and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States....
. But this amendment ultimately failed, falling two states short of the unanimous approval required for amending the Articles of Confederation (only New Hampshire and New York were opposed).
The proposed ratio was, however, a ready solution to the impasse that arose during the Constitutional Convention. In that situation, the alignment of the contending forces was the reverse of what had obtained under the Articles of Confederation. In amending the Articles, the North wanted slaves to count for more than the South did, because the objective was to determine taxes paid by the states to the federal government. In the Constitutional Convention, the more important issue was representation in Congress, so the South wanted slaves to count for more than the North did.
Effects
The three-fifths ratio, or "Federal ratio" had a major effect on pre-Civil War political affairs due to the disproportionate representation of slaveholding states. For example, in 1793 slave states would have been apportioned 33 seats in the House of Representatives had the seats been assigned based on the free population; instead they were apportioned 47. In 1812, slaveholding states had 76 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 instead of 73. As a result, southerners dominated the Presidency, the
Speakership of the HouseThe Speaker of the United States House of Representatives is the presiding officer of the United States House of Representatives. The current Speaker is Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat representing California's 8th congressional district....
, and the
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the "advice and consent" of the Senate...
in the period prior to the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
.
Historian Garry Wills has postulated that without the additional "slave" votes, Jefferson would have lost the presidential election of 1800. Also, "...slavery would have been excluded from
MissouriMissouri is a state in the Midwest region of the United States bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Missouri is the 18th most populous state with a 2008 estimated population of 5,911,605. It comprises 114 counties and one independent city....
...Jackson's Indian removal policy would have failed...the
Wilmot ProvisoThe Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed...
would have banned slavery in territories won from
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
....the Kansas-Nebraska bill would have failed...." However, other historians have criticized Wills's analysis as simplistic. For example, while the three-fifths compromise could be seen to favor Southern states (which generally had larger slave populations), the
Connecticut compromiseThe Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise of 1787 or Sherman's Compromise , was an agreement between large and small states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the...
tended to favor the Northern states (which were generally smaller). Support for the new Constitution rested on the balance of these sectional interests.
Superseded
Following the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
and the abolition of slavery by the
Thirteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was adopted on December 6, 1865, and was then declared in a proclamation of Secretary of State William H...
(1865), the three-fifths clause was rendered moot. Section 2 of the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States ConstitutionThe Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, along with the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, was adopted after the Civil War as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. It was adopted on July 9, 1868....
(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..."