Answer:
The correct answer is A. Politicians needed a compromise that would allow southerners the security of maintaing slavery.
Explanation:
The Three-Fifths Compromise was an agreement based on a compromise between the 13 original states in the United States, that a slave should count for 3/5 free men in the state's population when the seats of the newly-created House of Representatives were to be distributed. The agreement was passed on the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 and enshrined in the Constitution.
North States had originally argued that only free citizens should count when allocating seats in the House of Representatives. South states, on the other hand, had argued that the slaves should also be counted, as the slave southern states would thus be over-represented in the House of Representatives. The settlement was that a slave had to count for 3/5 free man and that this three-fifths man's owner was required to pay taxes for his slave.
As slaves were still not allowed to vote, the agreement gave the slave owners a clear political advantage as they thus constituted the majority of the population of the young union.
