Which 1787 compromise counted enslaved people as three-fifths for congressional representation and taxation?

The Three-Fifths Compromise was the 1787 agreement that counted enslaved people as three-fifths for congressional representation and direct taxation.

Delegates debated the issue during the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Southern states wanted enslaved people included when determining representation in the House of Representatives, even though enslaved people could not vote. Many Northern delegates opposed giving slaveholding states additional political power through that population.

The compromise specified that three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted for apportioning representatives and certain direct taxes. It did not declare that enslaved people were three-fifths of a person, and it did not grant them political rights. Instead, it created a constitutional counting rule that strengthened the representation of slaveholding states.

The rule remained in effect until the abolition of slavery after the Civil War. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, replaced the arrangement by requiring representation to be based on the whole number of persons in each state.