Three-fifths Compromise

Three-fifths Compromise
Name	Three-fifths Compromise
Constitution	United States Constitution
Article	Article I, Section 2, Clause 3
Introduced	July 12, 1787
Date passed	September 17, 1787
Date effective	March 4, 1789
Date repealed	1868 (de facto by Fourteenth Amendment)

Three-fifths Compromise. It was a pivotal agreement reached among state delegates during the Constitutional Convention in 1787. The clause resolved a fierce dispute between Southern and Northern states over how enslaved people would be counted for apportionment and taxation. Embedded in Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution, it had profound consequences for the balance of power in the early federal government.

Background and Context

Following the American Revolutionary War, the Articles of Confederation proved inadequate for national governance, leading to the Annapolis Convention and the subsequent call for a new convention in Philadelphia. A central conflict arose from differing economic systems: the agrarian South reliant on plantation slavery and the more commercial North. The issue of representation in the proposed Congress became contentious, particularly regarding whether enslaved individuals, who were denied all citizenship rights, should be counted as part of a state's population for determining seats in the House of Representatives and direct taxes levied by the Congress of the Confederation.

The Compromise at the Constitutional Convention

The debate was framed by two opposing proposals. The Virginia Plan, largely supported by larger states, advocated for representation based on population, which Southern delegates like Charles Pinckney of South Carolina and Pierce Butler argued must include the enslaved population. Northern delegates, including Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, objected, noting the hypocrisy of counting people as property for representation while denying them personhood. A committee, which included figures like Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman, was formed to break the deadlock. Sherman, along with delegates such as James Wilson, is often credited with proposing the three-fifths ratio, a formula previously used in the 1783 Revenue Act proposed under the Articles of Confederation.

Text of the Compromise

The agreement was codified in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution. The text stated that representation and direct taxes would be apportioned according to "the whole Number of free Persons" and "three fifths of all other Persons," with "other Persons" being a euphemism for enslaved African Americans. This clause explicitly excluded "Indians not taxed" from the count. The same ratio was applied in Article I, Section 9, which prohibited a ban on the "Migration or Importation of such Persons" until 1808, and in the presidential election process via the Electoral College.

Political and Demographic Effects

The compromise significantly increased the political power of slaveholding states. States like Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia gained additional seats in the House and extra influence in the Electoral College, despite the disenfranchised status of the enslaved population. This enhanced power was used to protect and expand the interests of the slaveholding plantation class, affecting legislation on issues like the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the admission of new slave states. The demographic distortion persisted for decades, shaping the composition of Congress and the outcomes of presidential elections, including those of Thomas Jefferson and other proponents of the Democratic-Republican faction.

Debate and Controversy

The compromise was denounced by many abolitionists and Northern politicians as a corrupt bargain that morally sanctioned human bondage. Lysander Spooner and other anti-slavery constitutionalists later argued it was a fatal flaw. During the Hartford Convention, some New England Federalists, resentful of Southern political dominance, proposed repealing the clause. Southern defenders, including John C. Calhoun, later invoked the compromise to argue for the constitutional protection of slavery as a state right, a position that became central to the ideology of the Confederate States of America. The infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court of the United States further entrenched the legal fiction that enslaved people were not citizens.

Legacy and Repeal

The Three-fifths Clause remained in effect until the aftermath of the American Civil War. Its practical effect was nullified by the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union victory, which freed enslaved persons. It was formally superseded and rendered obsolete by the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, and the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly repealed the clause, stating representation would be based on "the whole number of persons in each State." The compromise remains a stark historical example of how the U.S. Constitution accommodated and institutionalized racial inequality, a subject extensively examined by historians like Annette Gordon-Reed and in works on the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Category:1787 in American law Category:History of slavery in the United States Category:United States Constitution