Question

What issue was addressed by the three-fifths compromise?A) How the slave population would be counted.B) How to regulate trade with foreign nations.C) How to admit new states to the union.D) How a federal executive would be chosen.

Answer 1

Your answer would be A) How the slave population would be counted. During the time, there was a big debate on whether or not the slaves in the U.S should be counted towards the whole population of the United States when it comes to voting. People wanted a proper number, or representation, of the amount of people in the U.S that voted. The free men that lived in the U.S has every right to vote, but whenever a Slave votes, their votes would count as only 3/5 of a person. That's where the three-fifths compromise comes from, it decided that slaves could only be 3/5 of a person, meaning that their vote will count as 3/5, but not 1 whole. This means that the slaves who vote don't represent a whole person, and is only partially voting. This made the voting numbers very difficult and inaccurate because a person who's voting can't be only 3/5 of a person. In order for the votes to be more accurate, people believed that everyone, even slaves, should be one whole vote, not 3/5 of a vote.