threefifths

Three-fifths refers to a provision of the United States Constitution known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, reached in 1787 during the Constitutional Convention. The compromise determined how enslaved people would be counted for purposes of representation in the House of Representatives and for apportioning direct taxes. Specifically, it established that enslaved individuals would be counted as three-fifths of a person when calculating a state's population for these purposes. The arrangement was a solution to a dispute between Northern states, which objected to counting enslaved people at all for representation, and Southern states, which wanted enslaved people included to increase their political power.

The clause appeared in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and had the practical effect of elevating the representation of slaveholding states relative to those with fewer or no enslaved people. It tied political power to the institution of slavery and helped shape the balance of power in the early federal government for decades.

The Three-Fifths Compromise was rendered obsolete by the Fourteenth Amendment (ratified in 1868), which established equal protection under the law and altered apportionment to count “the whole number of persons” in each state, effectively ending the three-fifths rule. The compromise remains a focal point in discussions of constitutional design, the mechanics of representation, and the enduring legacies of slavery in the United States.