Republicanism and Slavery: Origins of the Three-Fifths Clause in the United States Constitution

Abstract

A MERICAN historians have become increasingly aware of how the institution of slavery and the problems of race created tension in Western culture.' During the Revolutionary crisis of the eighteenth century when new constitutional principles and structures emerged in North America, slavery inevitably created friction in politics. Some historians have argued that the three-fifths clause in the United States Constitution was a product of significant conflict over the issue of slavery in the Convention of I787. Others attach little importance to the clause. It is the purpose of this essay to analyze these arguments and to introduce a new interpretation of the discord that led to the inclusion of the three-fifths clause in the Constitution. The clause ordained that three-fifths of the number of slaves in a state would be added to the number of free citizens, including bond servants but excluding Indians not taxed, to determine how many congressmen the state would send to the House of Representatives. The same formula specified the amount of direct taxes the state would pay to the national government.2 The usual interpretation of the political conflict behind the establishment of this procedure in the Constitution is as follows: northerners wanted to count slaves in determining