Question

Which of these issues was settled by the Three-Fifths Compromise at the Constitutional Convention?

Answer 1

Answer:  B) The issue of how to count the slaves toward representation in Congress.

Details:

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the Three-Fifths Compromise was a way of accounting (somewhat) for the population of slaves in states that permitted slavery.  For taxation and representation purposes, the question was whether slaves should count in the population figures.  (They were not considered voting citizens at that time.)   The Three-Fifths Compromise said that three out of every five slaves could be counted when determining a state's population size for determining how many seats that state would receive in the House of Representatives.

Answer 2

The correct answer is B.

The desire to include slaves in the population count was a high priority for many southerns. Even though a higher population means paying more in federal taxes, a significant amount of southerners wanted slaves to count in the population. This is because population determines how many representatives a state gets in the US House of Representatives. On the other hand, many Northerners did not want slaves to count, as this would give slave states more political power in the House of Representatives.

Ultimately, the 3/5ths compromise is adopted, which states that for every 5 slaves, 3 will count towards the population of a given state.