What is the three fifths clause in the Constitution?
Asked by: Angeline Hansen | Last update: March 11, 2026Score: 4.9/5 (62 votes)
The "3/5 Clause" refers to the Three-Fifths Compromise in the U.S. Constitution (Article 1, Section 2), which counted three out of every five enslaved people when determining a state's total population for both congressional representation and direct taxation, significantly boosting Southern states' political power in the House of Representatives and Electoral College. This compromise, reached at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, legally counted enslaved individuals as less than full persons for political purposes while simultaneously making them part of the population count that gave slaveholding states more power, and was later repealed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
What is the three-fifths clause?
Although the Constitution did not refer directly to slaves, it did not ignore them entirely. Article one, section two of the Constitution of the United States declared that any person who was not free would be counted as three-fifths of a free individual for the purposes of determining congressional representation.
Which amendment canceled the three-fifths clause?
Subsequently, the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly repealed the Three-Fifths Clause. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 2 ( Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. ).
What was the purpose of the agreement known as the Three-Fifths Compromise?
The Three-Fifths Compromise established the method for states to include enslaved individuals in the population count for federal representation and taxation purposes. Southern states wanted to have enslaved individuals included in the count for representation but not for taxation, as they viewed them as property.
When did black people count as 3-5?
The Three-fifths Compromise, also known as the Constitutional Compromise of 1787, was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention over the inclusion of slaves in counting a state's total population.
The US Constitution, 3/5, and the Slave Trade Clause: Crash Course Black American History #9
Are black people considered human in the Constitution?
Race and the Constitution
Our founding principles are colorblind (although our history, regrettably, has not been). The Constitution speaks of people, citizens, persons, other persons (a euphemism for slaves) and Indians not taxed (in which case, it is their tax-exempt status, and not their skin color, that matters).
Does the 3-5 compromise still exist?
No, the Three-Fifths Compromise is not still in effect; it was nullified by the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, which changed how states are apportioned for representation by counting the "whole number of persons" in each state, effectively ending the counting of only three-fifths of enslaved or formerly enslaved people for political power.
What position did the original US Constitution take on slavery?
Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1, is one of a handful of provisions in the original Constitution related to slavery, though it does not use the word “slave.” This Clause prohibited the federal government from limiting the importation of “persons” (understood at the time to mean primarily enslaved African persons) where ...
Why was the Three-Fifths Compromise so controversial?
The immediate effect of the Three-Fifths Compromise was to inflate the power of the Southern states in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. These were the states in which the vast majority of enslaved persons lived.
Were slaves counted in the census?
Prior to 1850 slaves were enumerated on the general population schedule. The 1850 census included separate enumerations of slaves.
What is the only Amendment ever repealed?
The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified by the requisite number of states on January 16, 1919. The Eighteenth Amendment was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5, 1933, making it the only constitutional amendment in American history to be repealed.
How did the 3-5 compromise affect taxes?
The Constitutional Convention in 1787 adopted the three-fifths compromise, whereby five slaves were counted as three people for purposes of taxation and representation. The idea originated as part of a 1783 congressional plan to base taxation on population.
What does the 27th Amendment actually say?
The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that no law varying the compensation for Senators and Representatives shall take effect until an election of representatives has intervened, meaning Congress can't give itself a pay raise that takes effect immediately; they have to wait until after the next election, allowing voters to decide if they approve. It was originally proposed in 1789 by James Madison but wasn't ratified until 1992, making it the last ratified amendment, with a long history due to its lack of a time limit for ratification.
Who benefited from the Three-Fifths Compromise?
The three-fifths compromise, reached during the sessions of the Constitutional Convention (May-September 1787), benefited the southern slave-owning states.
Were slaves considered human?
Although the enslaved of the early Republic were considered sentient property, were not permitted to vote, and had no rights to speak of, they were to be enumerated in population censuses and counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation in the national legislature, the U.S. Congress.
Why was the Electoral College created?
The Electoral College is a process, not a place. The Founding Fathers established it in the Constitution, in part, as a compromise between the election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens.
Did the Three-Fifths Compromise end slavery?
And it also shows the importance of considering history counterfactually: there is indeed an argument that the three-fifths compromise ultimately helped end slavery, even if had nothing to do with the abolition movement, because the compromise was necessary to the creation of the union.
Why did many people oppose the Constitution?
The Anti-Federalists feared that the new Constitution gave the national government too much power. And that this new government—led by a new group of distant, out-of-touch political elites—would: Seize all political power. Swallow up the states—the governments that were closest to the people themselves.
What was the agreement to count slaves as three-fifths of a person?
Three-fifths compromise, compromise agreement between delegates from the Northern and the Southern states at the United States Constitutional Convention (1787) that three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives.
Which founding father did not own slaves?
Several Founding Fathers did not own slaves, including John Adams, Samuel Adams, Thomas Paine, and Alexander Hamilton, all Northerners who generally opposed the institution, while others like Benjamin Franklin and John Jay started as slave owners but became prominent abolitionists later in life, contrasting with slaveholders like Jefferson and Washington who viewed it as a necessary evil, according to sources like Study.com.
Who abolished slavery in the USA?
In 1863 President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring “all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” Nonetheless, the Emancipation Proclamation did ...
Why were black people considered 3/5 of a person?
At the convention, southern states wanted slaves counted as whole people for the census and northern states didn't want them counted at all. The compromise was the 3/5ths number Madison proposed four years earlier.
Has the 25th Amendment been invoked?
The first use of the 25th Amendment occurred in 1973 when President Richard Nixon nominated Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan to fill the vacancy left by Vice President Spiro Agnew's resignation.
Does the Constitution say every man is equal?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
How did the Three-Fifths Compromise affect taxes?
Arguing that the original meaning of the Clause does not impose any substantive limitations on Congress' ability to tax, and instead only reflects the compromise that, should Congress elect to apportion a tax, it must count three-fifths of slaves.