"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."
When this topic came up in our Section 2 class we discussed the potential reasoning behind the inclusion of this clause. As representation would be determined by population, the issue of whether or not to count slaves was made a big deal by the framers. Many northerners held that slaves were merely property and deserved no representation whatsoever. They maintained that counting slaves would put the north at a disadvantage and would in fact incentivize an increase in slave importation.
With the shift from a confederacy to a federal system, states with lower representation would lose power in Congress. Not wanting to be at a disadvantage, the southern states pressed the issue of representation because of the benefit it provided. The 3/5 rule came as a result of the conflict between the slave and free states, but it did not originate at the Convention. It actually came from the Articles of Confederation and had previously existed as a means to collect requisitions which was the source of income for Congress under the Articles. To go along with allowing increased representation in the slave states, Gouverneur Morris of Pennsylvania recommended that the clause also include the concept that taxation would be directly proportioned based on representation. As such, southern states would get the representation that they desired but would also be burdened by the additional taxes that would be incurred as a result of the compromise.
In affect the Compromise was more anti-slavery than we sometimes suggest it to be. The 3/5 rule removed whatever sectional benefit counting the slaves created. Rather than suggesting that slaves are not persons, the framers acknowledge the contrary in having them considered in both representation and direct taxation.
I think when the 3/5ths clause was discussed the framers thought that the states would be happy with the negative-positive balance. Although 3/5ths of the slaves would be counted for representation, they would also be included for direct taxation purposes. I believe the south wanted the slaves to be represented solely for the purpose of representation in congress, thinking that they would have more power in the house of representatives. This didn't go as planned for the southern states because the northern states began to grow faster then them.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder where the 3:5 ratio derived from, and how was it decided.
In reference to the souther states, it seems rather obvious to me that the 3/5 compromise was still beneficial regardless of the increase in taxation due to the increase in representation among those states. The southern states had to make a choice that would bring rise to two outcomes, less power in Congress, or increased taxation due to increased representation. In my mind the southern states did the right thing by accepting the 3/5 compromise because in sight of their own interests, losing power in Congress had much greater consequences in the long run, than did the imposed increase in taxation. If the 3/5 compromise were not set in place, the southern states would have lost significant power and influence in congress, thus putting them at a much greater disadvantage to the norther states than they were by accepting increased tax rates.
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