Three-fifths compromise, compromise agreement between delegates from the Northern and the Southern states at the United States Constitutional Convention (1787) that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives.
The three-fifths compromise was an agreement, made at the 1787 Constitutional Convention, that allowed Southern states to count a portion of its enslaved population for purposes of taxation and representation. The compromise gave the South more power than it would have had if enslaved people had not been counted.Thomas Jefferson, the United States' third president, may have been outvoted by his opponent, Aaron Burr were it not for the three-fifths compromise. ... Thomas Jefferson would never have been president if it weren't for the Three-Fifths Compromise, as it became knownThe Three-Fifths compromise gave southern states disproportionate representation in the House of Representatives relative to free states, thereby helping the southern states to preserve slavery.
