According to Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution, slaves were to be counted as three-fifths of a person when determining the number of congressional districts (or representatives) allotted to each state. This provision, known as the "Three-Fifths Compromise," meant that for purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives, three-fifths of the slave population would be included in the state's total population count. This compromise increased the political power of slaveholding states by giving them more representation than if slaves had not been counted at all, but less than if slaves had been counted fully as persons
. The exact wording in the Constitution states that representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the states according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding the whole number of free persons and three-fifths of all other persons (the slaves)
. This clause was later superseded by the Fourteenth Amendment, which abolished the three-fifths rule and provided for representation based on the whole population, excluding non-voting status as a factor
