Three-Fifths Compromise
At the Constitutional Convention, there was some debate over whether slaves should be counted as part of the population determining the number of seats in the House of Representative granted to each state. The Three-Fifths Compromise was the solution to this problem. It determined that five slaves would count as three people in determining the population for taxing and representation. [1]
It was proposed in 1787 by James Wilson at the Constitutional Convention. The Compromise was introduced as a solution between the Southern and Northern States over how to count slaves in the regard of taxation determining representation in the House of Representatives.This permitted southern slave holding states to count each of their slaves as 3/5th's of their population. After much debate, they settled the issue by allowing the slaves to be counted as three fifths of a person, not a full person. Although the slaves were not counted completely as "property" some still were unsatisfied, and wished to be thought fully as, "people".[2]