Three-fifths compromise

The three-fifths compromise was a compromise of the Virginia and New Jersey plans (regarding the government that would be created by the United States Constitution) in which each slave counted as three-fifths of a person regarding the apportionment of the members of the U.S. House of Representatives (through a census). Often, it is said that each slave was considered three-fifths of a person.

Following the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, the three-fifths clause was finally repealed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (1868).