In the Constitutional Convention of 1787, there was a debate about how to count states’ slave populations for the purposes of determining representation in Congress.

One result of that convention was the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted each slave as three-fifths of a person.

In this lesson, students use census data and fraction multiplication to explore the effects of the Three-Fifths Compromise on the balance of power between free and slave states in early America.

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