Answer: The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise reached among state delegates during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. Delegates disputed whether and how slaves would be counted when determining a state's total population, as this population number would determine a state's number of seats in the House of Representatives and how much it would pay in taxes. The compromise counted three out of every five slaves as people, giving the Southern states a third more seats in Congress and a third more electoral votes than if slaves had been ignored, but fewer than if slaves and free people had been counted equally.
