today we're looking at the three-fifths compromise
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questions down in the description the three-fifths compromise was a compromise that was reached
during the constitutional convention of 1787 in which delegates from each state were sent to draft
a new constitution for the united states the issue was representation in congress they agreed that
the senate would have equal representation with each state having two representatives
but they also agreed that population would determine how many representatives each state
would receive in the house of representatives so the more people that lived within a state
the more representatives that a state would have to elect to the house here is where the
three-fist compromise came into play and this compromise is not something that we as americans
should be proud of in our nation's history but southern states at the constitutional convention
argued that they should receive additional representatives based on the fact that they
had a large population of enslaved people living in their states despite the fact that they treated
enslaved africans as property and they were not given citizenship or any rights southerners still
wanted enslaved people to be counted in population counts in order to receive more representatives
in the house of representatives northern states argued that only free inhabitants of each state
should be counted in the population counts some northern states argued that
southern states could now control representation in congress by enslaving more africans another
aspect to consider of the debate that occurred at the constitutional convention was the fact that
not only representation was based on population but also federal tax contribution would be based
on population so if southern states didn't indeed get what they wanted and every enslaved individual
counted towards their overall population that would also mean that they would have to pay more
taxes to the federal government so the debate went on into mid-june of 1787 and it became a
very heated debate in fact some southern states threatened to leave the constitutional convention
if the issue was not settled james wilson of pennsylvania and charles pickney of south carolina
proposed a compromise that the enslaved population of southern states would only be counted
as three-fifths of their actual number so in other words for example if population counts counted
one thousand enslaved people they would only be counted as 600 in the population count and the
continental congress accepted this three-fifths compromise plan which basically meant an enslaved
person really only had the value of three-fifths of a person and interestingly in the actual
compromise which was in article 1 section 2 clause 3 of the constitution the word slave or slavery is
never used in describing this this agreement again going back to the fact that the constitutional
convention did not truly want to take on the issue of slavery since so many there were slave
holders themselves and did not want to give up the institution instead enslaved people were simply
termed as all other persons in the constitution this compromise would have a long lasting impact
on american politics and history the compromise basically gave southern slave holding states
more power in congress than what their pa their true population dictated so for example in 1812
southern states had 76 of 143 seats in the house representatives despite the fact that they should
have only had 59 based on their free population and of course having 76 out of 143 meant that they
had over half of the seats which made them able to pass laws that were favorable to southern states
and also these unfair numbers helped southern states to heavily influence who would be speaker
of the house and control other political offices and between the years of the constitution being
written in 1787 to the beginning of the civil war in 1860 barely 70 years later the enslaved
population in southern states exploded in 1810 it was estimated that there were just over 1
million enslaved people but by 1860 that number had jumped to right at 4 million enslaved people
with the outbreak of the civil war in 1861 the days of the institution of slavery in america
were numbered abraham lincoln of course issued the emancipation proclamation really making
the war about ending slavery and then slavery was permanently abolished with the 13th amendment
in 1865. the 14th amendment which gave former enslaved people citizenship and equal legal rights
superseded or basically removed the three-fifths compromise the three-fifths compromise is yet
another example of the negative impact the institution of slavery had on american history by
denying full human rights to people simply because of the color of their skin the nation put itself
at risk and of course it led to the bloodiest war in american history and a long history of racial
conflict and discrimination so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching
you