Question

At the Constitutional Convention, what was the main concern the northerners had about allowing southern states to count slaves for representation in Congress?

The slave trade would have to end, and the northern states wanted it to continue.

Counting them would result in slaves being allowed to vote on important decisions.

Once slaves were counted, all states would have to pay higher prices to own them.

Southern states could simply buy more slaves to increase their power in Congress.

Answer 1

@completeidiot

Answer 2

slaves were considered property and thus wouldnt be able to vote

Answer 3

ohhhhh........

Answer 4

well its not A right??

Answer 5

because slaves were a major part of the south, and they greatly outnumbered the population of the south
considering the senate was 2 per state
and house was dependant on the population of the state

if slaves were counted per person, then the south would completely dominate the house or congress, then it wouldnt be fair

Answer 6

then what would the answer be @completeidiot ??

Answer 7

@lgbasallote

Answer 8

The last is the least silly. The problem was simple: the slaves were certainly not going to have the right to actually vote -- indeed, they had no rights at all, under most of the constitutions of slave-owning states. So the only effect counting them to determine representation would have would be to significantly magnify the power of the white voters in Southern states, relative to the North.

For example, suppose the results of the Census and the size of the House work out so that there should be 1 Congressman for every 50,000 citizens of a state. In the North, those would be 50,000 free men, with 50,000 votes that the Congressman would have to win, one by one -- and 50,000 independent opinions which the Congressman would represent in Congress.

But in the South, 30,000 of those 50,000 might be slaves owned by 5,000 of the white citizens. That means that Congressman needs to win only 20,000 votes, and he presents no more than 20,000 independent opinions in Congress.

Or, to put it another way, each citizen of a Northern state would "own" 1/50,000 of a Congressman, while each citizen of a Southern state would "own' 1/20,000 -- making in about twice as powerful, politically speaking.

The Northerners saw this as ridiculously unfair. If the Southerners wanted the blacks to "count" for Representation, let them give the blacks the vote. The Southern rejoinder was that, while true that the average Southern white voter would have more political power than the average Northern white voter, that was only because the average Southern white voter was responsible for a larger number of non-voting dependents -- including his slaves. So the actual number of living souls represented by each Congressman were similar -- what did it matter that many could not vote? Their needs were still relevant, and funneled through those who could vote.

This was a less ridiculous argument then, compared to now, because in the late 18th century it was accepted that only a fraction of even adult citizens should be voting at all: women should not vote, for example, nor often citizens who didn't own property, or who were in other ways not "pillars of the community" in some way. In the Founders' generation, it was felt that it was quite possible for someone to be represented in Congress without having the actual vote to determine who went to Congress -- because someone more responsible -- husband, father, head of the family, et cetera -- would in essence represent that person.

And at that...even today we think that way about children. We do not give them the right to vote until they are 18, although we count them for the purposes of representation. We assume their parents represent their interests. Northerners thought that way about husbands representing wives' interests, and Southerners thought that way about whites representing the interests of blacks.

Nevertheless, it still struck the North as a pretty naked power grab, wrapped up in a lot of booshwa about noble responsibilities, so they were not about to let the South count slaves equally with citizens, and that's where we get the 3/5 compromise.