Three-Fifths Compromise

Examples of Three-Fifths Compromise in the following topics:

• Federalists and Antifederalists

  • Eventually, the Compromise was accepted, and the Convention was saved.
  • Compromises were important in settling other disputes at the Convention.
  • The Three-Fifths Compromise designated that three-fifths of slave population would be counted toward representation in Congress.
  • In another compromise, the Congress agreed to ban slave trade after 1808.
  • Three Federalists—Alexander Hamilton , James Madison, and John Jay—wrote a series of essays called The Federalist Papers.

• Amending the Constitution

  • There are two additional ways to approve an amendment: One is through ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.
  • Alternatively, an amendment can be ratified by three-fourths of specially convoked state convention.
  • The amendment process originally came with restrictions protecting some agreements that the Great Compromise had settled during the Constitutional Convention.
  • The Great Compromise (also called the Connecticut Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
  • It called for a bicameral legislature along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states.This agreement led to the Three-Fifths Compromise, which meant less populous Southern states were allowed to count three-fifths of all non-free people toward population counts and allocations.

• The Constitutional Convention

  • To resolve this stalemate, the Connecticut Compromise, forged by Roger Sherman from Connecticut, was proposed on June 11.
  • This committee helped work out a compromise: In exchange for this concession, the federal government's power to regulate foreign commerce would be strengthened by provisions that allowed for taxation of slave trades in the international market and that reduced the requirement for passage of navigation acts from two-thirds majorities of both houses of Congress to simple majority.
  • The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise between Southern and Northern states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in which three-fifths of the enumerated population of slaves would be counted for representation purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives.

• Drafting the Final Document

  • The Three-Fifths Compromise designated that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted as part of a state's population.
  • For three days, the Convention compared this final version with the proceedings of the Convention.

• The Civil War Amendments

  • The three amendments prohibited slavery, granted citizenship rights to all people born or naturalized in the U.S. regardless of race, and prohibited governments from infringing on voting rights based on race or past servitude.
  • This contrasted with the pre-Civil War compromise that counted enslaved people as three-fifth in representation enumeration.

• Advice and Consent

  • For appointments, a majority of senators are needed to pass a motion "to advise and consent", but unless the appointment has the support of three-fifths of senators, a filibuster blocking the passage of the motion is possible.
  • The founding fathers of the United States included the language as part of a delicate compromise concerning the balance of power in the federal government.
  • Under the Twenty-fifth Amendment, appointments to the Office of Vice President are confirmed by a majority vote in both Houses of Congress, instead of just the Senate.
  • For appointments, a majority of senators are needed to pass a motion "to advise and consent," but unless the appointment has the support of three-fifths of senators, a filibuster blocking the passage of the motion is possible.

• Constitutional Issues and Compromises

  • At the Constitutional Convention, the Virginia, Pinckney, New Jersey, and Hamilton plans gave way to the Connecticut Compromise.
  • Debate topics included the composition of the Senate, how "proportional representation" was to be defined, whether the executive branch would be composed of one person or three, presidential term lengths and method of election, impeachable offenses, a fugitive slave clause, whether to abolish slave trade, and whether judges should be chosen by the legislature or executive.
  • The plan featured a bicameral legislature, the lower house elected by the people for three years.
  • To resolve this stalemate, Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut, forged the Connecticut Compromise.

• The Miranda Warning

  • Arizona, the Supreme Court held that the admission of an elicited incriminating statement by a suspect not informed of these rights violates the Fifth and the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
  • The Miranda right to counsel and right to remain silent are derived from the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment.
  • The consequences of assertion of Fifth Amendment right to counsel are stricter.
  • The three exceptions are (1) the routine booking question exception (2) the jailhouse informant exception and (3) the public safety exception.
  • Nonetheless, all three circumstances are treated as exceptions to the rule.

• Constitutional Limits

  • The United States adheres to the principles of a constitutionally limited government in the three branches of government.
  • More importantly, Section 2 grants and limits the president's appointment powers: "The president may make treaties, with the advice and consent of the Senate, provided two-thirds of the senators who are present agree;" "With the advice and consent of the Senate, the President may appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not otherwise described in the Constitution;" and "Congress may give the power to appoint lower officers to the President alone, to the courts, or to the heads of departments. " In addition, the Twenty-fifth Amendment limits the presidency to two terms .
  • Joint Resolution Proposing the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, page 1.

• Policy Implementation

  • Whether a given policy has been implemented successfully depends on three major criteria:
  • Policy formulation is often the result of compromise and symbolic uses of politics.