The Pennsylvania Compromise

This set of 6 proposed Constitutional amendments was one of the last congressional attempts to preserve the union without resorting to a full blown war with the South. This proposal was ineffective because Congress found that the proposed amendments, one of which would have made slave ownership a Constitutional right in the South, conceded too much to Southern extremists and thus it was never passed. This compromise also would have extended the slave demarcation line, splitting the United States in two sections and exacerbating the extent to which their were two divisive political parties; one for Northern rights and one for Southern rights. By the time the Crittenden Compromise was proposed slavery was no longer an issue which only pertained to the maintenance of a political balance of power but it had also become a moral issue. This made Northern voters much less likely to support a compromise that did not directly place a limit on slavery, much less one that made it a Constitutional Amendment. With Northern voters beginning to vehemently stand up for their beliefs against slavery and state authority and Southern voters still refusing to back down from theirs, the ineffectiveness of past compromises was

The problem of each state’s number of seats in the House of Representatives became a major issue when the Constitution was being drafted in 1787. The population of slaves would be counted as three-fifths in total when apportioning Representatives, as well as Presidential electors and taxes. The Three-Fifths Compromise was proposed by James Wilson and Roger Sherman, who were both delegates for the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Initially, taxes were levied not in accordance to the population numbers, but the actual value of the land. This would provide the slaveholders to have many more seats in the House of Representatives and much more representation within the Electoral College. It was James Madison that would suggest the Three-Fifths Compromise to be made .

Lastly, I believe that these compromises made the Union much stronger and much more organized because all the delegates could agree on something rather than each state doing something different. If some states allowed the slave trade and the neighboring state had banned it, it could be very confusing and chaotic. Another example is that if the delegates hadn’t agreed on the three fifths compromise, then the Southern states would be doing the opposite of the northern states and the Union wouldn’t be as stable. These are the many compromises that the delegates had to agree on during the constitutional convention.

During that time, slavery was an issue in the United States. The Southern states wanted their population, including their slave population to be counted toward their representation in the House of Representatives, the reason for this was because the higher the population, the more representatives they would receive; on the other hand, the Southern States did not want their slave population counted toward their taxes, this was because, the higher the population, the more taxes the south would have to pay; the Northern States disagreed with the Southern States on both matters, there were fewer slave states in the north so the sum of the slaves and the ordinary people would not help the northern states earn representation. Secondly, the northern states felt that if the southern states were allowed to count slaves as part of their population for representation, they should also be counted for taxation. The solution for this confusion was the Three-Fifths Compromise, which each slave would count as three-fifths of a person for both representation and taxation

The Three- Fifths Compromise, mentioned in document 5, established the way in which slaves would be counted toward representation in the House of Representatives. Every five slaves would be counted as three people “including those bound to service for a term of years…three fifths of all persons”. The Great Compromise, showed in document 6, was the final agreement for a way to govern the United States. This Compromise agreed with the Virginia Plan and made the legislative branch bicameral “Created a Congress that is made up of two branches”. The two branches are the Senate and The House of Representatives. According to Document 5 the representation in the House of Representatives is composed of members chosen by the people of the several states for two years, the representation in the Senate is determined by two senators from each state. The chosen people for the Senate have a six year term. (Doc 5 & 6). Furthermore, based on the graph from document 4, it shows that the states Delaware and Rhode Island will support the new Congress due based on equal representation because of the population, they are able to evenly distribute the power. The states Massachusetts and Virginia would seem to support new Congress based on population because of the massive population it contains. Instead of everyone, it would be a group of

However, the Three-Fifths Compromise would not be adopted until the Constitutional Convention in 1787 when it was again proposed by Roger Sherman and another founding father James Wilson. The North and South were able to agree on the 3/5ths Compromise because the South both gained and lost as a result. While the South received more representation in the House of Representatives, the South also had to pay more taxes. According to the constitution, the 3/5ths compromise states “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.” This compromise was ultimately crucial in solving the conflict and preserving the

James Wilson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, proposed the idea of the three- fifths clause to give the north and the south a chance for compromise. However, the South had strong opinions about counting the slaves as part of the population because the south wanted a better chance at getting more representatives for their states. However, the North did not want the slaves to count as part of the population because the North thought that it would only benefit and empower the smaller states and the slave owners. With the South gaining more population than the North, the north would not have more power. Three-Fifths Compromise stated that Congress would not restrict overseas slave trade for a period of twenty years. Three-Fifths of the slaves would count towards representation and taxation. In 1807, Congress was free to re-address the problem, but it was not until a year later that Congress did revisit the issue and then decided to not allow overseas slave trade. By that point, it was nearly debatable since every state (except Georgia) had included an embargo on overseas slaves in their state constitutions. As one can see the three-fifths clause was one of the major conflict differing from the North and

This may have balanced the slave to non-slave state count in the union but it also basically flat out divided the nation based on slavery. Instead of solving the problem it was a temporarily solution that eventually lead to struggles between the North and the South over the introduction of future western states into the union on the issue of slavery. The passing of this compromise was solely due to the people in Congress, and the president and had nothing to do with the Constitution what so ever.

The Southern states wanted to count the slaves as part of the population. On the other hand the Northern states disagreed to it because during that period the slaves were considered as possession not citizens. In others words, this counting of the slaves to the Northern states meant less representation for them. This lead to the Three-fifth Compromise, which allowed all the states to count slaves as three-fifths of a person. Both the North and the South states were satisfied with the

The Solution was that congress was not allowed to mess around with slavery for a certain amount of time after the constitution was made. The 3/5's Compromise is said to have started the conflict between the North and the South. This divided the nation because the North had little slave’s due to the factories, but the South had more slaves than they did salve owners due to the plentiful of plantations. The North didn't want slaves to be counted because counting slaves would give the South an advantage to having more representative in the lower house since it is counted by population. The 3/5's Compromise called for exactly 3/5th of the slaves in a state to be counted when determining the number of the congress delegates a state would obtain.

The compromise included the Thomas Amendment, which prohibited slavery north of the 36 degree and 30 minute parallel, indicating the Northern aversion to the practice. Jefferson saw the compromise as the death bell of the Union and a greater divide to the North and South as it outlined clear moral distinctions between the two regions (Doc 4). The population was more dense in the North compared to the South so they needed to employ the three fifth's compromise, that included part of the slave population when it came to determining the representation in the House, to try and protect the southern interests (Doc 3). The South were holding on to slavery while the North were actively trying to decrease its presence, demonstrating a sectionalist

The Three-Fifths Compromise of the Constitution was an agreement between Southern and Northern states in which three-fifths of the population of slaves would be counted for representation purposes for the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives. Those who opposed slavery generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. Those who supported slavery wanted to count slaves in their actual numbers. The so-called compromise of counting "all other persons" as only three-fifths was for the benefit of Southern power

There were many disagreements and compromises that occurred while in the process of creating the Constitution. Some were: the debate over slavery, the debate of the Virginia plan and the New Jersey plan, and the disagreement about the amount of time the president should work. There was a huge debate over slavery and the states were torn between abolishing slavery and owning slaves. A three-fifths clause was created so that slaves would be considered part of the state’s population. Three-fifths of the slave population was a compromise where some of the slaves would be counted “in determining each state’s representation in the House of Representatives and its

They felt that the three-fifths compromise allowed for a misrepresentation within the government. Another more negatively perceived argument against the three-fifths compromise was through the use of Northern racism which said that southern African Americans were held as equals to Northern whites. Previously, while under a Federalist administration, the North did not feel the need for the three-fifths compromise to be abolished; however, as soon as the Federalist representation decreased in the government, New England cease to benefit anymore especially in their commerce. Closely tied to the three-fifths compromise was the fact that more slave states were being added to the Union which also lessened New England’s representation (Mason, 2002). With all these injustices, as perceived by New England's Federalist, they had come to a breaking point and was pushed to form a conference to try and solve these

The next, more vital to the future of America, was the Three Fifths clause. The Three Fifths clause was set in place so that the southern states, which had significantly less people, get more say in the House of Representatives than their free, white population warranted. The Three Fifths clause added three fifths of the total slave population to the free population of the state in order to be more equal to the northern states whose population of free men was overwhelming to the amount in the southern states.