Talk:Three-fifths Compromise

message: The Three-Fifths compromise ensured that Thomas Jefferson was elected to office. Also, via Andrew Jackson, the Trail of Tears would never have happened, nor would the ban on congress to discuss slavery have been put into effect. Also, the 1820 Missouri compromise would never have come into effect. While it is arguable that the 3/5ths compromise may have slowed the day that America came to blows with itself, via the Civil War, it is also arguable that the 3/5ths compromise caused most of the problems between the North and South.
What's the point of this paragraph? Seems like original research and POV unless there's a citation for it. Tetigit 05:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it is quite true that many Democratic electoral successes were due to the three-fifths compomise; I'll try to fix that paragraph up to get rid of the original research.--Pharos 07:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Original Research?

message: Several commentators in this discussion make the common error of assuming that the Constitution was refering to racial or national categories rather than specifically to the status of free or enslaved individuals.  A slave is not necessarily the same as an African or African-American.  A free person is not necessarily a white person.  The Constitution does not assume that slavery was racially-based, although that was generally the reality by 1787.
Indeed.   Sam 21:15, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: race and slavery are separate issues

message: "Although the words "slave" and "slavery" are not found in the Constitution this and two other references to the institution of slavery are widely interpreted as giving an implicit sanction to the institution in the U.S. Constitution. The other two references are the prohibition for Congress to restrict the international slave trade for twenty years (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 1), and the provision for a fugitive slave clause (Article IV, Section 2, Paragraph 3)."
They may be widely interpreted that way in liberal arts colleges, but not so widely elsewhere.  This is an important entry - clean it up.  Sam 16:11, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Original Research Again

message: :::Why would slaves be counted for representation anyway, they gave slave states extra power by counting the slaves who couldn't vote and didn't have rights. Jamesman666 (talk) 18:47, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm no historian, but my understanding is that it was a compromise arrived at on the way to creating a ratifiable constitution for the country. See the Constitutional Convention subsection in the article. Also see WP:NOTFORUM and the final item in WP:TPNO. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:11, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Census counts include everybody (except "Indians not taxed" before 1924) -- this means slaves in the 19th century, illegal aliens and homeless people today etc... AnonMoos (talk) 23:29, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: We are not talking about a census count, we are talking about representation and the 3/5ths compromise, what you said is irrelevant to the conversation Jamesman666 (talk) 19:00, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Allocation of numbers of representatives in the U.S. House is based on census counts, and always has been (except for the 1st congress).  If not for the 3/5ths clause, slave states would have had more representatives in the House, and more weight in in presidential elections. AnonMoos (talk) 21:35, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: If the 3/5ths clause didn't exist, you have no basis to state that all the slaves would have counted towards representation, that's the whole point of the "compromise" the north wanted none of them to count, the south wanted all of them to count, the north compromised with slave owners by letting them count 3/5ths of the slave who had no rights or couldn't vote. That's like letting them count 3/5 of all dogs and horses towards representation. It's not an anti-slavery measure, it's a compromise with slave owners. Jamesman666 (talk) 02:39, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Census counts have always included all humans (see comment of 23:29, 25 January 2023 above) except for "Indians not taxed" before 1924 (see comment of 12:16, 2 December 2009).  Ability to vote has never been a prerequisite to being counted.  Women, children, and white males who did not meet property qualifications were always counted. AnonMoos (talk) 21:33, 18 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The census was just used so they would know the number of people in each state, it has nothing to do with who gets representation, i'm not going to keep repeating myself. Jamesman666 (talk) 15:35, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You need to read the Constitution, dude: Article 1, section 2, clause 3.   The word "enumeration" is used instead of "census", but the meraning has never been disputed. AnonMoos (talk) 16:15, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: That's irrelevant to the discussion Jamesman666 (talk) 19:11, 19 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The intent of this section was to discuss: (quoting), directly addressing the extremely widespread misconception about the three-fifths compromise, i.e. that it was some sort of statement by the framers that African Americans were "60% as human" as whites. It should not be a discussion about how individual wikipedians feel about that but, rather, about what viewpoints citeable reliable sources have expressed about that. Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:07, 21 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: We know how the compromise has been widely misquoted, the article should mention it. Jamesman666 (talk) 22:50, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

text: Yet one of your source is misquoting the compromise, the constitution didn't declare slaves as 3/5ths of a person, it only counted 3/5ths of them for purposes of representation. Jamesman666 (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: 2023

message: I removed the following:
"(Adams won a majority of the popular vote and only the skewed Electoral College gave Jefferson the Presidency)."
Wills claims that Adams would have won the electoral vote had electors been apportioned according to free population.  Discussing the popular vote only obscures this issue, especially in light of the modern controversy about the Electoral College.  Moreover, most states didn't even hold a popular election; electors were appointed by the legislatures (see United States presidential election, 1800). 71.120.98.53 (talk) 21:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: 1800 presidential election

message: This article has to be fleshed out more.  It's nice to know about the origins of the 3/5 number under the articles.  But readers will want to know just what happened at the convention.  Who proposed it there?  Who supported and who opposed it?  What was the vote?  If you leave that out, you're not giving the whole story!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.69.127.101 (talk) 22:08, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: 1787 constitutional convention

message: What exactly is meant by 'Indians not taxed'? This have anything to do with reservations? --Gwern  (contribs) 00:24 2 December 2009 (GMT)
:Perhaps not - in context (looking at the dates involved), it would appear to be a way of distinguishing those who were members of the community or not. Tedickey (talk) 01:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It means those who had their own quasi-autonomous governments, so that for most purposes the U.S. national government did not really deal with individuals directly, but only with the group as a whole (and its leaders.).. AnonMoos (talk) 12:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: In any case, it was defunct by 1924, when all Indians were declared to be U.S. citizens... AnonMoos (talk) 07:54, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Indians

message: Why launch a tangent regarding what might have happened if the 3/5s had been replaced with 0?
This did not actually happen.
Why not consider if it were 1 or 3/4s each of which was taken seriously during negotiations.
As long as we are considering imaginary worlds where 3/5s was zero, why not imagine that the free born population was reduced to zero too?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Meadbert (talk • contribs) 17:57, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's said to be speculation by historian Gary Wills, not science fiction... AnonMoos (talk) 00:30, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

text: Gary Wills or not, if the point is to be neutral shouldn't both extreme cases, 1 and 0, as well as the other compromise ratios be taken into account, not just zero and 3/5ths?  It seems like a cherry-picked data set to me.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nesogra (talk • contribs) 17:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Historical Fiction in the Effects Section

message: This is a specific historic compromise.  Therefore, its name is a proper noun, and all nontrivial words in its name should be capitalized.  I have edited the article accordingly and moved the article to the appropriate headword.  Marco polo (talk) 18:28, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalization

message: Is there online incontrovertible evidence that the Three Fifths Compromise intended to count three fifths of the enumerated population of slaves? It is argued by many that the Three Fifths Compromise counted slaves as partial human beings, i.e., three fifths of a person. I intend to prove this as a prevarication and fallacy. I wish to get irrefutable and easily accessible evidence from the internet to prove slaves where not counted as three fifths of a person. Please provide internet links and concise descriptions to conclusive online proof (e.g. link to section of the Federalist Papers describing the intent of the three fifths clause or compromise, if section exist).  --Ziggypowe (talk) 00:37, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: They were practical politicians, not scholastic metaphysical angel-on-head-of-pin counters.  The Federalist Papers and the records of the 1787 constitutional convention are both on-line for you to search through, if you wish... AnonMoos (talk) 08:34, 2 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evidence of the Three Fifths Compromise intent 

message: The three-fifths ratio, or "Federal ratio", had a major effect on pre-Civil War political affairs due to the disproportionate representation of slaveholding states relative to voters. For example, in 1793 slave states would have been apportioned 33 seats in the House of Representatives had the seats been assigned based on the free population; instead they were apportioned 47.  Is this really in Wills?  It has a really basic factual error: during the 3rd United States Congress, 63 of the 105 members of the House of Representatives were from slave states.  Look at :File:US SlaveFree1800.gif; only New York, Pennsylvania, and the five New England states were free in 1800, and New York had emancipated just one year before.  During the 3rd Congress, Connecticut had 7 representatives; Massachusetts 14; New Hampshire 4; Pennsylvania 13; Rhode Island 2; and Vermont 2.  I don't know the formula for determining numbers of representatives following the 1790 census (but remember that they didn't have a set number of representatives then, as we've had since the 1910 census), but even if they would have had 33 seats based on free population, they definitely didn't get just 47.  Nyttend (talk) 12:28, 19 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't read Wills, but probably he was using a slightly anachronistic definition of "slave state". By the time of the first national crisis over slavery in 1819-1820, slavery was abolished or clearly on its way out across the north, while it had gained in economic importance and was spreading into new territories in the south.  Things were not yet so clearly polarized in 1793... AnonMoos (talk) 13:45, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The material in question is contained on page 6 of Wills' "Negro President".  Wills actually directly quotes Leonard Richards in "The Slave Power" (pages 56-57).  It is clear from the context of both works that the authors are referring to Southern slave states rather than total slave states. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 17:41, 26 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wills' calculations 

message: The opening paragraph states that the compromise gave “southern slave-owners a third more seats in Congress and a third more electoral votes than they would otherwise have had” needs to be explained. Was that just for the first session of Congress? As stated later on the page, in 1793 “Southern slave states had 47 members" because of the compromise, but would have only had 33” without it. That’s 42% more.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.189.166.173 (talk) 12:28, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clarification Needed - Did the South Gain a Third More Power in Congress?  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The following was in the article to refute a claim that the 3/5 Compromise gave Jefferson the 1800 election: "Other historians, however, have criticized Wills' analysis as simplistic.  The link to support this is dead but I found a workable link at .  However the article linked (actually at interview) does not support the claim.  At best, a single historian, Jack Rakove, offers a different counterfactual argument based on the possibility that several state delegations could have changed their minds. Wills, also being interviewed at the same time quoted the following to Rakove that Rakove had written: "The Republican [Jefferson] victory depended on the additional votes gained through the application of the three-fifths clause to the Electoral College. But this factor arguably brings us within the realm of constitutional tragedy rather than mere stupidity." 
All in all, the article does not support the claim being made so I am removing it. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 22:45, 14 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removal of material 12-14-2016 

message: I added a section detailing the process that was followed at the convention:
:1) 3/5ths of slaves proposed
:2) 3/5ths of slaves rejected
:3) Full representation of slaves proposed, rejected
:4) 3/5ths accepted
There is a problematic line in the wiki article: "reduced the representation of the slave states relative to the original proposals, but improved it over the Northern position" - this line could give the impression to some that somehow the north's position - opposing slavery - was somehow wrong.  Noting in the article the very important facts that the compromise was initially voted down as well as contentious clarifies this line and casts it in the proper light.  It should also be noted, but I will leave that to others, the clear math issue using Garry Wills' numbers.
In 1793, the slave states would have only had 33 members without representation - which is what the north preferred.  By 3/5ths, the slave states had 47 representatives, vs 56 for the free states.  But what if the south would have had its way and gained full representation for its slave population?  The southern states would have had more like 55 representatives, and the northern states would have been the minority. Progressingamerica (talk) 22:40, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of the commenters in sections above seem to believe that at the 1787 convention, there were scholastic metaphysical mystical debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin the relative worth of souls, but I found a reprint of Madison's Notes (), and no such debates are reported to take place -- just debates about whether population or taxed property should be used as the basis of representation, some people pointing out that the 3/5ths rule isn't one thing or the other, and denunciations of slavery by Gouverneur Morris. AnonMoos (talk) 03:09, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Process at the Convention

message: No source is given for Sherman proposing this. Madison's record of the Convention says Wilson proposed it and was seconded by Mr C Pinckney, so I've changed it to that and cited Madison. Richard75 (talk) 22:46, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Roger Sherman 

message: Let's discuss. valereee (talk) 21:35, 3 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  removal of content 

message: neologisms such as enslaved are promotional rather than neutral, used to promote a political ideology TEDickey (talk) 07:54, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey, thanks for commenting. A descriptive term isn't a matter of promoting anything (see WP:NPOV), and it's also not "political" or newly-coined. Of course, the US practice of enslaving people was itself a political ideology, so I can understand the confusion. Check out the usage in Slavery in the United States. Feel free to call for a new editor consensus there. Otherwise, there's no reason for the terms to be inconsistent. 75.172.60.209 (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Some time has passed now, but I think "enslaved" refers to the awkward "enslaved persons" as a substitute for simply "slave" rather than as a verb.  is this what you mean? Wikinights (talk) 20:23, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

text: Something like that.  The terms don't mean the same thing, though the editor commenting before pretends that they do, and that it's herd-consensus.  I'm not inclined to argue with someone who makes up their own facts.  Bye. TEDickey (talk) 22:18, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  using Wikipedia page for soapbox 

message: I'm re-considering whether a mention of the Southern founders' racism should be included in the "Background" section. (I was the writer of the short Background paragraph, including a mention of racial prejudice.) The current state implies that the Southern founders justified slavery at least in part due to their prejudice and that the Northern founders did not use racial prejudice to justify slavery. Some Southerners did express moral qualms with slavery (Thomas Jefferson comes to the top of my head, but he still owned slaves). And racism wasn't restricted to the South. 
The current paragraph is too general to be entirely accurate. I propose that we link the articles Slavery in the United States, referencing the sections "Origins" and "Revolutionary era," and Slavery in the colonial history of the United States. The current section would become a summary of those two articles. Wikinights (talk) 17:25, 4 May 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: In the 18th century, some southerners were among the loudest in theoretically deploring the existence of slavery.  It was only in the nineteenth century, when Northern states gradually got rid of slavery, while it gained in economic value in the South and became more solidly entrenched there, that there came to be a strong divergence between Northern and Southern attitudes (though being against the expansion of slavery is not the same thing as a lack of racism, of course).  The first "sectional" crisis (pitting north vs. south over the issue of slavery) was in 1819 (leading up to the Missouri Compromise)... AnonMoos (talk) 00:38, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

text: I deleted the background section due to nuances that would be lost in a single paragraph and lack of sourcing. Wikinights (talk) 19:27, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mention of racism in Background section 

message: I have only a sketchy knowledge of early American history, but I'm bothered by what seems to me to be a glaring NPOV-ignoring omission here -- prominent mention of the point of fact that counting enslaved persons on the same basis as those not enslaved would have given slave states a massive voting advantage in the House of Representatives.
As I understand it, the point that counting enslaves persons on the same basis as their slavers would give slave states a great voting advantage had been thrashed out a bit in the Continental Congress, and delegates to the Constitutional Convention arrived aware of this; delegates favoring slavery proposed a compromise of three-fourths; delegates opposed to slavery countered with a proposal of one-half (not zerp, as the votes of slave states would be needed for ratification of the constitution being hammered out), and three-fifths was the compromise arrived at by the Convention. That compromise, it seems to me, was more an exercise in limiting the governmental voting power of slavers in slave states than it was an exercise in disrespecting enslaved persons.
I'm on shaky ground searching for sources but I've found one -- not the best of RSs -- which seems to explain this pretty well -- see the second paragraph on pages xi-xii in   Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:03, 26 July 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: See comment of "12:57, 22 June 2010" above on this page. AnonMoos (talk) 21:40, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV and omission 

message: Are the ontology mentions a joke? — THORNFIELD HALL (Talk) 09:25, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ontology