The "Three-Fifths Clause"

While numbers do not explain the everyday realities of slavery in the eighteenth century, they do provide a sense of the pervasiveness of the peculiar institution, even in a northern state like New York. This broadside detailing data from the 1800 census in New York breaks down the free population of each county in the state as well as three-fifths of their slaves and provides an aggregate sum of those categories. The U.S. Constitution permitted 60 percent of slaves to be considered in the total population count of each state in a compromise designed to assuage the Southern states and provide them with greater representation in Congress and the Electoral College.

While the "three-fifths clause" of the Constitution enhanced Southern claims to power, the North’s lesser-known complicity is illustrated through the New York census numbers. While New York’s leaders had passed a bill for the gradual abolition of slavery in 1799, it would not be fully implemented until 1827. Therefore, New York included 60 percent of those held in bondage within its borders during the counts of 1800, 1810, and 1820. But the number of slaves in New York was miniscule in comparison to the South; the 12,362 slaves counted toward representation in New York in 1800 were not even enough for half a seat in the House of Representatives.

The Constitution demands that the government take stock of the country every ten years. It was an essential part of the republic the Founders created, since accurate population statistics were and are needed to properly appropriate seats in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. The process was spelled out in the Article 1, Section 2:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative.

After the first federal census in 1790, New York’s aggregate population was 340,120 and it was given 10 representatives. The broadside shows that New York’s aggregate population grew by over 73 percent, to 578,349, and it was roughly given the same increase in its representation in the House, with 17 seats. Jottings at the bottom of the document show someone dividing numbers to arrive at the number of people per representative, which were slightly over 34,000.

New York City’s figures are listed separately at the top of the document, showing the special status the city held in the state. The numbers show that the city was the second largest in America, behind Philadelphia which had a population of just over 69,000 in 1800. But New York’s population growth was relentless, being driven by foreign immigration, “the city gained about two thousand residents annually in the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century, and over three thousand per year at the opening of the nineteenth century.”¹ But by the 1810 census, New York surpassed Philadelphia as the nation’s largest city, with just over 96,000 and just under 92,000 people respectively.

¹Ira Rosenwaike, Population History of New York City (Syracuse, NY, Syracuse University Press, 1972), 17.

A STATMENT, Shewing the Aggregate Numbers of PERSONS in each of the Wards of the City of New-York, and in each of the Counties in this State, including, however, no more than three-fifths of the whole number of Slaves.

GLC08893, Population of the State of New York, ca. 1800

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