What was the 3/5 rule and why was it important ?

Answer 1

Let's be clear about this --the "three-fifths" of "federal" number had NOTHING to do with the view of the degree of humanity of slaves/blacks!

This is obvious when you recognize that is the SOUTH that wanted ALL slaves to be counted, whereas the North would have preferred for NONE to be counted!

The controversy at the Constitutional Convention this compromise sought to resolve was first of all about how to determine representation of a state in the House of Representatives and, as a result of that, how many electors for President each state could send. The MORE slaves the South was allowed to count, the more representation it gained them in the government, and the more power in choosing the President.

There was another reason for the number, viz., the issue of determining how much in TAXES each state ought to pay. This was actually the original North-South dispute, under the Articles of Confederation. In that case the South did NOT want blacks counted because higher population meant higher tax assessments for them! Of course, the North wanted them FULLY counted in that case.

The 3/5 number was a compromise number in THAT debate (proposed by James Madison), but it never received the unanimous support of the states necessary for putting it in place. But when a related dispute arose at the Constitutional Convention, the 3/5 number was ready-to-hand. And it turned out that the Southern states were willing to pay extra taxes for the benefit of extra representation.

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Below is the section of the Constitution where the 3/5 provision is spelled out. Note that it refers to counting "three fifths of all other [i.e., non-free] PERSONS" Here we see slaves considered as Persons --as fully human. Further, FREE blacks would be FULLY counted, so it clearly had nothing to do with ideas about what 'percent human' blacks were

Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 begins:

"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.
"
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section2

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HOW THIS WAS IMPORTANT

In recent times the consequences of all this tend to be forgotten. That's because the North ended up with a much larger population through immigration, so that the South did not end up overwhelming it in numbers, as many feared.

BUT there were, in fact, ENORMOUS effects on who held POWER in the federal government for the first half of the 19th century, and what policies ended up being carried out -- esp. as regards slavery, but not exclusively that.

The first clear consequence was Thomas Jefferson's defeating John Adams in his re-election bid. Jefferson had eight more electoral votes than Adams, but ONLY because the 3/5 compromise gave the South extra electors. As a result, Northern ANTI-slavery critics of Jefferson dubbed him "the ***** President" --not, as you might at first think, because he helped or was supported by the ***** population, but because he won from the electoral votes representing these black slaves... though it was actually the vote of heir MASTERS, since they had none.

Beyond that, the Presidency was held by slave holders for 50 of the first 72 years, and for many of the remaining years by Northerners quite willing to compromise with "the slave power" (the Adamses being the only exceptions). Under them, the judiciary was largely in Southern hands, hence rulings like the Dred Scott Decision. And other powerful federal leaders (e.g., the Speaker of the House) were mostly Southern and friendly to slave-interests.

Legislation (esp. that involving slavery) was also affected. One key example -- Missouri would NOT have been admitted as a slave state if not for the additional Southern votes in the House.

To see a fuller sketch of the consequences of this compromise, check out the following excerpt from Garry Wills's book ****** President: Jefferson and the Slave Power (Houghton Mifflin, 2003).
http://www.wnyc.org/books/23191

See also:
http://americanhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_threefifths_compromise

Answer 2

The 3/5 Rule counted each slave as 3/5 of a person. The South, in 1787, wanted the slaves fully counted for purposes of population representation in the House of Representatives and in the Electoral College. The North did not want the slaves counted at all. The compromise reached at the Constitutional Convention was the 3/5th Rule.

Since the Constitution never directly mentioned slaves or slavery the wording was “three-fifths of all other persons.”

Slaves, of course, couldn’t vote so white southerners were over-represented in both the House of Representatives and in the Electoral College because they owned large numbers of slaves.

Answer 3

When counting the population of Southern states it was agreed upon that blacks would be counted as 3/5 of a person. That was a compromise because the majority of southerners didn't think that blacks were human, but they wanted their population to be higher. Northern states didn't want them to have it both ways. So, ultimately, they reached an agreement that blacks would count as 3/5 human.

Answer 4

it was important for congressional numbers. The higher your population the more people you can have in the House of Representatives

Answer 5

This refers to census figures in the early USA. A slave was counted as three-fifths of a person for census purposes. Strange, I know, but true.