The United States Constitution, Apportionment of Representatives. (Const., Art. 1, sec. 2.)

On the 17th of September, 1787, the Philadelphia Convention adopted the plan of the present Constitution. The draft thus made was submitted to the people, assembled in State Conventions, “for their assent and ratification.” President Madison has preserved a record of the debates in the Philadelphia Convention; and we have also published accounts of the debates in several of the State conventions. We draw our evidence mainly from these sources.

Rufus King, of Massachusetts, one of the framers, said of the expression “three fifths of all other persons,” “These persons are the slaves.” Alexander Hamilton, of New York, another of the framers, referring to this clause “which allows a representation for three fifths of the negroes,” said, “without this indulgence no union could possibly have been formed.” Luther Martin, also a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, objected to this clause because “it involved the absurdity of increasing the power of a State in making laws for freemen, in proportion as that State violated the rights of freedom.” William R. Davie, a delegate from North Carolina, says that the Southern States, “to acquire as much weight as possible in the legislation of the Union,” insisted “that a certain proportion of our slaves should make a part of the computed population.” General Charles C. Pinckney, another of the framers of the Constitution, said, “We determined that representatives should be apportioned among the several States by adding to the whole number of free persons three fifths of the slaves.”