9781422274187

population of each state. Now, a new

DID YOU KNOW ? By 1787, ten states had outlawed the international slave trade; only North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia still permitted it. But those states insisted that they would leave the Constitutional Convention if the slave trade was banned. A compromise was reached: under the Constitution, the federal government would not be able to ban the international slave trade until 1808.

argument arose as the framers of the Constitution attempted to define how population would be calculated. Delegates from states with large slave populations, like Virginia and South Carolina, wanted slaves to be counted in the total population

for the purpose of representation in

Congress. Delegates from states with low numbers of slaves or who believed slavery itself should be rendered illegal through the Constitution, argued that slaves should not be included when determining representation since they were not considered people, but rather property. The debate held the possibility of scuttling the Constitutional Convention if enough slaveholding states refused to ratify the document without the inclusion of the enslaved population in the count for representation. In the end, the delegates reached an uneasy and imperfect compromise. The so-called Three-Fifths Compromise appeared in Article I Section 2 of the Constitution and stated that Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

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Seeds of Discord