The Three-Fifths Compromise saved an American government that nearly failed before it even began.
The American Constitutional Convention in 1787 was our founders’ effort to create a united government that addressed the regional differences of a small, but growing country. Citizens of the various states had a wide variety of customs, attitudes, and beliefs that had to be blended into some sort of union.
Without a united government, the American Revolution would have been for nothing. The Three-Fifths Compromise was key to building that government. Here's how it happened.
One of the biggest points of contention involved slavery. Many were adamantly opposed to any form of slavery, viewing it as the most vile and evil custom imaginable. Others depended on slavery for the labor to maintain their own livelihoods.
Clearly, a workable solution wouldn't be easy to find. The delegates to the convention had their work cut out for them.
The goal of the Constitutional Convention was to create a government that worked for all states and regions of the country. To do that, the founders knew it would be impossible to give everyone everything they wanted.
Compromise was the only way forward. And on issues as deeply divisive as slavery, compromise was next to impossible. Even today, scholars still argue over the method the founders used to get past this thorny issue and create a government that was vital to the country’s survival.
When the choice is between death and survival, solutions can be difficult to find. Many of the founders acknowledged the bitter irony of building a country committed to freedom while also allowing slavery within its borders. But everyone knew the southern states would walk away from the entire endeavor if slavery were prohibited. Feelings ran deep on both sides of the issue.
Having just been through a painful and costly war to break free from Britain, the founders understood that creating a strong government pulling the states and regions together had to be the absolute priority. Without some give and take among the delegates, the whole enterprise would be doomed.
It soon became clear that some sort of compromise would have to be made around the issue of slavery. Slavery, taxation and representation were all in the mix. How would they come to an arrangement acceptable to all?
When unification is absolutely necessary, the thorniest issues can reach resolution only through compromise. The Three-Fifths Compromise was the solution they finally agreed on. Each side gave ground on the contentious issue of slavery to reach the larger goals of unity and independence for the young nation.
As we know, the issue of slavery would divide the nation and result in a civil war less than a hundred years later, but the immediate goal of unity was ultimately reached by the Constitutional Convention through the Three-Fifths Compromise.
Apportionment of representation within the new government was a thorny problem. Virginia, a larger state, proposed representation based on population or wealth, which would give larger states more influence than the smaller states.
New Jersey, a small state, proposed equal representation for each state, regardless of population. Neither side was willing to give in to the other on the matter of representation based on population, and wealth would be difficult to establish fairly.
The deadlock was resolved with the Connecticut--or Great--Compromise establishing a bi-cameral legislature with proportional representation in the lower house, based on population, and equal representation of each state in the upper house.
Once that was decided, the next issue was how to determine population fairly. Northern states wanted to count each state’s free population. But Southern delegates were ready to walk out and abandon the convention and union entirely if enslaved individuals were not counted.
To break the deadlock, the founders agreed on a compromise that called for representation in the House of Representatives to be apportioned on a state’s free population plus three-fifths of its enslaved population. This came to be known as the Three-Fifths Compromise.
This gave the Southern states greater representation, but the same ratio would be used in determining the federal tax burden. Therefore, the tax burden for slaveholding states would be higher. It was far from perfect, but it was the best compromise the assembly could reach.
The words “slave” or “slavery” didn’t appear in the original Constitution. It was only when the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, was finally ratified in 1865 that the word "slavery" was finally added.
In the nineteenth century a problem long ignored would finally be addressed and America would face the long-buried issue of slavery in a Civil War. But that’s a story for another day.