Editing Three-fifths Compromise (section)

{{Short description|Superseded US Constitution clause counting slaves}}
{{use mdy dates|date=May 2016}}
[[File:US Slave Free 1789-1861.gif|right|300px|thumb|upright=1.8|An animation showing the free/slave status of U.S. states and territories, 1789–1861 (see separate yearly maps below). The [[American Civil War]] began in 1861. The 13th Amendment, effective December 6, 1865, abolished slavery in the U.S.]]

The '''Three-fifths Compromise''', also known as the '''Constitutional Compromise of 1787''', was an agreement reached during the 1787 United States [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|Constitutional Convention]] over the inclusion of [[Slavery in the United States|slaves]] in counting a state's total population. This count would determine the [[Apportionment (politics)|number of seats]] in the [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]], the number of electoral votes each state would be allocated, and how much money the states would pay in taxes. Slaveholding states wanted their entire population to be counted to determine the number of Representatives those states could elect and send to Congress. Free states wanted to exclude the counting of slave populations in [[slave state]]s, since those slaves had no voting rights. A compromise was struck to resolve this impasse. The compromise counted three-fifths of each state's slave population toward that state's total population for the purpose of apportioning the House of Representatives, effectively giving the Southern states more power in the House relative to the Northern states. It also gave slaveholders similarly enlarged powers in Southern legislatures; this was an issue in the secession of [[History of West Virginia|West Virginia]] from [[Virginia]] in 1863. [[Free Negro|Free black people]] and [[Indentured servitude|indentured servants]] were not subject to the compromise, and each was counted as one full person for representation.<ref> [[Paul Finkelman|Finkelman, Paul]], [https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1245&context=yjlh "The Founders and Slavery: Little Ventured, Little Gained"], p. 427.</ref>

In the [[Constitution of the United States|United States Constitution]], the Three-fifths Compromise is part of [[Article One of the United States Constitution#Clause 3: Apportionment of Representatives and taxes|Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3]].  In 1868, Section 2 of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] superseded this clause and explicitly repealed the compromise.