Three-fifths compromise, compromise agreement between the 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...
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"Many of the
Founding Fathers acknowledged that
slavery violated the ideal of liberty that was so central to the
American Revolution, but, because they were committed to the sanctity of private
property rights, the principles of limited government, and the pursuit of intersectional harmony, they were unable to take bold action against slavery. Moreover, the Southern Founders’ thoroughgoing embrace of slave-based agriculture and their deeply ingrained racial
prejudice solidified the barriers against emancipation. That the
Continental Congress removed
Thomas Jefferson’s statement regarding the injustice of the
slave trade (and, by
implication, slavery) from the final version of the
Declaration of Independence is emblematic of the Founders’ resolve to subordinate the controversial issue of slavery to the larger goal of securing the unity and independence of the United States."