Three-Fifths Compromise Resolution (1783)

In April 1783 the Congress of the Confederation adopted a three-fifths ratio for counting enslaved persons toward state populations for taxation, after rejecting one-half and three-fourths proposals. The ratio, proposed by James Madison, originated in an amendment to the Articles of Confederation on April 18, 1783, and was later incorporated into the 1787 Constitution.

Episodes

Background and detail

Background. A committee of the Congress of the Confederation had proposed that taxes "shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitants of every age, sex, and quality, except Indians not paying taxes". The question of how enslaved persons should be counted in such apportionment became a point of contention among the states.

The 1783 Resolution. The three-fifths ratio originated with an amendment proposed to the Articles of Confederation on April 18, 1783. After proposed compromises of one-half by Benjamin Harrison of Virginia and three-fourths by several New Englanders failed to gain sufficient support, Congress finally settled on the three-fifths ratio proposed by James Madison. The agreement was reached by a vote of eight states to two.

Later Adoption in the Constitution. The three-fifths ratio was later adopted in the 1787 United States Constitution, appearing in Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3, which apportioned Representatives and direct Taxes according to the whole number of free persons plus three fifths of all other persons. Madison later defended the ratio in Federalist No. 54 and No. 55 in February 1788.

People involved

Sources

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.