Antebellum America: The Constitution and the "Three-Fifths Clause"
This month in 
potus_geeks, we'll take a look at Antebellum America and just what precipitated the Civil War. Many of these articles will center around the blight on US history known as slavery and how the division between those who somehow felt justified in enslavement of other human beings because of those persons having a different skin color, and those who saw the obvious immorality of this conduct, almost led to the break-up of the nation.
The concept of human slavery dates back to biblical times. The first incidents of the enslavement of African people in America was said to have occurred in 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African persons ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portuguese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista, which was bound for Europe. Throughout the 17th century, European settlers in North America looked upon enslaved African persons as a cheap and plentiful source of labor. Some historians estimate that as many as six or seven million enslaved people were imported to North America during the 18th century alone. Enslaved Africans were put to work on tobacco, rice and indigo plantations of the southern-eastern coast of the United States, from the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia south to Georgia.
After the American Revolution, it had dawned on many of the colonists, especially those in the North, that the oppression of enslaved Africans was not unlike their own oppression by the British. Approximately 5,000 black soldiers and sailors fought on the American side during the Revolutionary War, and it became difficult for many to justify the continued enslavement of those who had fought alongside white Americans for freedom from the British . Many began to call for slavery’s abolition.
John Adams was one of the early opponents of slavery, though he was not an outright abolitionist. Adams saw the unity of the states as a greater priority for the security of the nation, while at the same time being personally opposed to slavery. Adams never owned a slave and he reused on principle to use slave labor. He wrote,
"I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence, that I have never owned a negro or any other slave, though I have lived for many years in times, when the practice was not disgraceful, when the best men in my vicinity thought it not inconsistent with their character, and when it has cost me thousands of dollars for the labor and subsistence of free men, which I might have saved by the purchase of negroes at times when they were very cheap."
Before the war, Adams sometimes represented enslaved persons in lawsuits for their freedom. But he tried to avoid the issue from national politics, because of he knew that southern response to abolition would split the nation a time when unity was needed to achieve independence. In 1777, when the Massachusetts legislature proposed a bill to emancipate slaves, Adams spoke out against it, arguing that the issue was much too divisive. He advised that the legislation should "sleep for a time." During the Revolutionary War he was also against the use of black soldiers in the Revolution because he was concerned that this would cause southern states to abandon the revolutionary cause.
Slavery was eventually abolished in Massachusetts about 1780, when it was forbidden by implication in the Declaration of Rights that John Adams wrote into the Massachusetts Constitution. His wife, Abigail Adams, was much more vocal in her opposition to slavery.
When the Constitution was being written, a debate arose over what to do about enslaved persons when it came to the subject of how many representatives each state would be allowed and how taxation would be apportioned among the states within this Union. Was a state's population to be decided by the total number of persons, or just the number of free persons? Polarization over contentious political issues is not a new phenomenon and this was a contentious political issue. As with many contention issues, the delegates addressed the issue with a compromise.
On April 18, 1783, an amendment was proposed to the Articles of Confederation on April 18, 1783. Its purpose was to change the basis for determining the wealth of each state, and in turn its tax obligations, from real estate to population. This was to be the basis for producing financial support for the new nation. A proposal made by a committee of the Congress had suggested that taxes "shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes". The South immediately objected to this formula because it would include enslaved persons, and this would mean that those states with a large population of enslaved persons would have to pay more to the central government. Southern states viewed enslaved persons as "property" and not as citizens. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his notes on the debates that the Southern states would be taxed "according to their numbers and their wealth conjunctly, while the northern would be taxed on numbers only".
Benjamin Harrison of Virginia (father of future president William Henry Harrison, and great-grandfather of future president and namesake Benjamin Harrison) proposed a compromise in which the number of enslaved persons in a state would be counted in half for the purpose of making the required calculation. When that was rejected, some New England delegates suggested that this discount be three-fourths. Congress finally settled on the three-fifths ratio proposed by James Madison. However even this amendment failed, falling two states short of the unanimous approval required to amend the Articles of Confederation. It was rejected by New Hampshire and New York.
The issue came up again in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, which took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the existing system of government under the Articles of Confederation, from the outset many of its proponents, such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton of New York, hoped to create a new model of government rather than fix the existing one.
During the Constitutional Convention, the three-fifths compromise was proposed by delegate James Wilson and seconded by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. On the first day of the Convention on its first day, Pinckney, who was from South Carolina, proposed that for the purposes of apportionment, a "House of Delegates" be determined through the apportionment of "one Member for every thousand Inhabitants 3/5 of Blacks included." The Convention unanimously accepted the first part of this resolution, that representation in the House of Representatives would be in proportion to the relative state population. But what to do about African-Americans was still a contentious issue. Southernors liked the idea of having enslaved persons counted in proportionate representation, since slaves could not vote, but counting them would give leaders in slave states the benefit of increased representation in the House and in the Electoral College. Delegates opposed to slavery proposed that only free inhabitants of each state be counted for apportionment purposes, while delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, opposed the proposal, wanting slaves to count in their actual numbers.
The proposal to count slaves by a three-fifths ratio was first presented on June 11. Nine states were in favor and two were opposed. The issue was debated at length between July 9 and 13. It was initially voted down by the members present at the Convention, six to four. Some Southern delegates then proposed full representation for their slave population. Most states voted no. Compromise was called for and the ratio of three-fifths was brought back to the table and was passed by a vote if eight states to two.
Although this meant that the burden of any direct tax would be increased on the southern states because of the Three-fifths Compromise, this was not a major concern. At the time federal revenue came mainly from excise taxes and import duties, which were mainly collected in the north. Some northern opponents to the compromise argued that the taxation provision was irrelevant, and the compromise would only increase the number of pro-slavery legislators. Southern states saw the compromise as a means of giving them more power in any legislative body, while not requiring the full force of taxation based on every human being in the state. Ironically, although southern delegates insisted that enslaved persons were "property," these same persons argued that enslaved persons s should be considered persons in determining representation, but as property if the new government were to levy taxes on the states on the basis of population. Delegates from states where slavery had become rare argued that enslaved personss should be included in taxation, but not in determining representation.
Alexander Hamilton wrote on this issue that "Much has been said of the impropriety of representing men who have no will of their own. They are men, though degraded to the condition of slavery. They are persons known to the municipal laws of the states which they inhabit, as well as to the laws of nature. But representation and taxation go together. Would it be just to impose a singular burden, without conferring some adequate advantage?"
The Three-fifths Compromise would provide additional representation in the House of Representatives to slave states compared to the free states. In 1793, for example, Southern slave states had 47 of the 105 seats, but would have had 33 had seats been assigned based on free populations. This gave Southern states additional influence on legislation, on the offices of the presidency, the speakership of the House, and the Supreme Court. This would continue until the American Civil War. The Southern states would insist on equal numbers of slave and free states, which was maintained until 1850.
The compromise and the additional power it gave to slave states resulted in many shameful events in American history. Historian Garry Wills has written that without this additional power, "slavery would have been excluded from Missouri, [Andrew] Jackson's Indian removal policy would have failed, the Wilmot Proviso would have banned slavery in territories won from Mexico and the Kansas-Nebraska bill would have failed."
The three-fifths clause came to an end after the Civil War when in 1868 Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly repealed the compromise. It provides that "representatives shall be apportioned... counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, had already eliminated almost all persons from the original clause's jurisdiction by banning slavery, The only remaining persons subject to it were those sentenced for a crime to penal servitude, which the amendment excluded from the ban.
potus_geeks, we'll take a look at Antebellum America and just what precipitated the Civil War. Many of these articles will center around the blight on US history known as slavery and how the division between those who somehow felt justified in enslavement of other human beings because of those persons having a different skin color, and those who saw the obvious immorality of this conduct, almost led to the break-up of the nation. The concept of human slavery dates back to biblical times. The first incidents of the enslavement of African people in America was said to have occurred in 1619, when the privateer The White Lion brought 20 enslaved African persons ashore in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia. The crew had seized the Africans from the Portuguese slave ship Sao Jao Bautista, which was bound for Europe. Throughout the 17th century, European settlers in North America looked upon enslaved African persons as a cheap and plentiful source of labor. Some historians estimate that as many as six or seven million enslaved people were imported to North America during the 18th century alone. Enslaved Africans were put to work on tobacco, rice and indigo plantations of the southern-eastern coast of the United States, from the Chesapeake Bay colonies of Maryland and Virginia south to Georgia.
After the American Revolution, it had dawned on many of the colonists, especially those in the North, that the oppression of enslaved Africans was not unlike their own oppression by the British. Approximately 5,000 black soldiers and sailors fought on the American side during the Revolutionary War, and it became difficult for many to justify the continued enslavement of those who had fought alongside white Americans for freedom from the British . Many began to call for slavery’s abolition.
John Adams was one of the early opponents of slavery, though he was not an outright abolitionist. Adams saw the unity of the states as a greater priority for the security of the nation, while at the same time being personally opposed to slavery. Adams never owned a slave and he reused on principle to use slave labor. He wrote,
"I have, through my whole life, held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence, that I have never owned a negro or any other slave, though I have lived for many years in times, when the practice was not disgraceful, when the best men in my vicinity thought it not inconsistent with their character, and when it has cost me thousands of dollars for the labor and subsistence of free men, which I might have saved by the purchase of negroes at times when they were very cheap."
Before the war, Adams sometimes represented enslaved persons in lawsuits for their freedom. But he tried to avoid the issue from national politics, because of he knew that southern response to abolition would split the nation a time when unity was needed to achieve independence. In 1777, when the Massachusetts legislature proposed a bill to emancipate slaves, Adams spoke out against it, arguing that the issue was much too divisive. He advised that the legislation should "sleep for a time." During the Revolutionary War he was also against the use of black soldiers in the Revolution because he was concerned that this would cause southern states to abandon the revolutionary cause.
Slavery was eventually abolished in Massachusetts about 1780, when it was forbidden by implication in the Declaration of Rights that John Adams wrote into the Massachusetts Constitution. His wife, Abigail Adams, was much more vocal in her opposition to slavery.
When the Constitution was being written, a debate arose over what to do about enslaved persons when it came to the subject of how many representatives each state would be allowed and how taxation would be apportioned among the states within this Union. Was a state's population to be decided by the total number of persons, or just the number of free persons? Polarization over contentious political issues is not a new phenomenon and this was a contentious political issue. As with many contention issues, the delegates addressed the issue with a compromise.
On April 18, 1783, an amendment was proposed to the Articles of Confederation on April 18, 1783. Its purpose was to change the basis for determining the wealth of each state, and in turn its tax obligations, from real estate to population. This was to be the basis for producing financial support for the new nation. A proposal made by a committee of the Congress had suggested that taxes "shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes". The South immediately objected to this formula because it would include enslaved persons, and this would mean that those states with a large population of enslaved persons would have to pay more to the central government. Southern states viewed enslaved persons as "property" and not as citizens. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his notes on the debates that the Southern states would be taxed "according to their numbers and their wealth conjunctly, while the northern would be taxed on numbers only".
Benjamin Harrison of Virginia (father of future president William Henry Harrison, and great-grandfather of future president and namesake Benjamin Harrison) proposed a compromise in which the number of enslaved persons in a state would be counted in half for the purpose of making the required calculation. When that was rejected, some New England delegates suggested that this discount be three-fourths. Congress finally settled on the three-fifths ratio proposed by James Madison. However even this amendment failed, falling two states short of the unanimous approval required to amend the Articles of Confederation. It was rejected by New Hampshire and New York.
The issue came up again in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, which took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the existing system of government under the Articles of Confederation, from the outset many of its proponents, such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton of New York, hoped to create a new model of government rather than fix the existing one.
During the Constitutional Convention, the three-fifths compromise was proposed by delegate James Wilson and seconded by Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. On the first day of the Convention on its first day, Pinckney, who was from South Carolina, proposed that for the purposes of apportionment, a "House of Delegates" be determined through the apportionment of "one Member for every thousand Inhabitants 3/5 of Blacks included." The Convention unanimously accepted the first part of this resolution, that representation in the House of Representatives would be in proportion to the relative state population. But what to do about African-Americans was still a contentious issue. Southernors liked the idea of having enslaved persons counted in proportionate representation, since slaves could not vote, but counting them would give leaders in slave states the benefit of increased representation in the House and in the Electoral College. Delegates opposed to slavery proposed that only free inhabitants of each state be counted for apportionment purposes, while delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, opposed the proposal, wanting slaves to count in their actual numbers.
The proposal to count slaves by a three-fifths ratio was first presented on June 11. Nine states were in favor and two were opposed. The issue was debated at length between July 9 and 13. It was initially voted down by the members present at the Convention, six to four. Some Southern delegates then proposed full representation for their slave population. Most states voted no. Compromise was called for and the ratio of three-fifths was brought back to the table and was passed by a vote if eight states to two.
Although this meant that the burden of any direct tax would be increased on the southern states because of the Three-fifths Compromise, this was not a major concern. At the time federal revenue came mainly from excise taxes and import duties, which were mainly collected in the north. Some northern opponents to the compromise argued that the taxation provision was irrelevant, and the compromise would only increase the number of pro-slavery legislators. Southern states saw the compromise as a means of giving them more power in any legislative body, while not requiring the full force of taxation based on every human being in the state. Ironically, although southern delegates insisted that enslaved persons were "property," these same persons argued that enslaved persons s should be considered persons in determining representation, but as property if the new government were to levy taxes on the states on the basis of population. Delegates from states where slavery had become rare argued that enslaved personss should be included in taxation, but not in determining representation.
Alexander Hamilton wrote on this issue that "Much has been said of the impropriety of representing men who have no will of their own. They are men, though degraded to the condition of slavery. They are persons known to the municipal laws of the states which they inhabit, as well as to the laws of nature. But representation and taxation go together. Would it be just to impose a singular burden, without conferring some adequate advantage?"
The Three-fifths Compromise would provide additional representation in the House of Representatives to slave states compared to the free states. In 1793, for example, Southern slave states had 47 of the 105 seats, but would have had 33 had seats been assigned based on free populations. This gave Southern states additional influence on legislation, on the offices of the presidency, the speakership of the House, and the Supreme Court. This would continue until the American Civil War. The Southern states would insist on equal numbers of slave and free states, which was maintained until 1850.
The compromise and the additional power it gave to slave states resulted in many shameful events in American history. Historian Garry Wills has written that without this additional power, "slavery would have been excluded from Missouri, [Andrew] Jackson's Indian removal policy would have failed, the Wilmot Proviso would have banned slavery in territories won from Mexico and the Kansas-Nebraska bill would have failed."
The three-fifths clause came to an end after the Civil War when in 1868 Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly repealed the compromise. It provides that "representatives shall be apportioned... counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed." The Thirteenth Amendment, passed in 1865, had already eliminated almost all persons from the original clause's jurisdiction by banning slavery, The only remaining persons subject to it were those sentenced for a crime to penal servitude, which the amendment excluded from the ban.