Three-Fifths Compromise was one of several major agreements reached in the drafting of the United States Constitution . It resolved the question of how to count enslaved people in determining the number of representatives a state should have. The compromise allowed states to count three-fifths of their enslaved people in determining population.
The compromise settled a dispute between the Northern and Southern states at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Southern States had large numbers of enslaved people. They wanted these people to be counted in determining the states’ representation. The Northern States did not want enslaved people to be counted for purposes of representation. They argued that to do so would give the Southern States too much representation, particularly as enslaved people could not vote.
The delegate James Wilson of Pennsylvania proposed counting three-fifths of the enslaved people, a figure that was ultimately agreed upon. It was enshrined in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. The third clause of that section states that representation should be based on “…the whole Number of free Persons… [and] three fifths of all other Persons.” The clause was ultimately repealed by the Fourteenth Amendment , which granted full citizenship to formerly enslaved people following the American Civil War (1861-1865).
