Why 3 5

To rectify this situation, a special committee recommended apportioning taxes by population. The Continental Congress debated the ratio of slaves to free persons at great length. Northerners favored a 4-to-3 ratio, while southerners favored a 2-to-1 or 4-to-1 ratio.

Finally, James Madison suggested a compromise: a 5-to-3 ratio. All but two states--New Hampshire and Rhode Island--approved this recommendation. But because the Articles of Confederation required unanimous agreement, the proposal was defeated. When the Constitutional Convention met in , it adopted Madison's earlier suggestion.

Article one, section two of the Constitution of the United States declared that any person who was not free would be counted as three-fifths of a free individual for the purposes of determining congressional representation. The "Three-Fifths Clause" thus increased the political power of slaveholding states. It did not, however, make any attempt to ensure that the interests of slaves would be represented in the government. More populous states would receive more representatives.

They well understood that one-third of that number was comprised of slaves. Were these humans not counted for purposes of representation, the population of southern states would drop from 49 percent of the national population to The three-fifths compromise, written into Article 1, Section 2, resolved the conflict. This raised an obvious question: on what rationale were slaves to be counted? If they were being counted as people, how could they be excluded from a government of the people, and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal?

And if they were being counted as property, why were no other forms of property to be included? Northern delegates were loath to inflate southern power, and so argued that the Constitution should not count slaves at all, since they were property and no other forms of property were to be considered. Are they men?

Then make them Citizens and let them vote. It was part of a provision of the original Constitution that dealt with how to allot seats in the House of Representatives and dole out taxes based on population. The compromise was the product of negotiations at the Constitutional Convention of But for taxation, the roles were reversed, says Kevin R.

Gutzman, a history professor at Western Connecticut State University. The compromise helped build support for ratification of the Constitution in Southerners might never have supported a document that gave no weight to slave populations. Northerners might have opposed ratification if slaves were fully counted for representation. Not in a fight over political power — particularly one in which states would be rewarded with larger congressional delegations and more electoral votes for having more people living in slavery.

Slaves had no political rights, but neither did other groups, including women. The debate over how to count slaves was acrimonious at times.