Why did the southern slave states wanted to count their slaves in the states total population?

Answer 1

The northern part of the United States opposed the counting of slaves as total population because the southern part of the United States had many more slaves. The northern states did not allow slavery. The southern states did. As a result, if the South, whose slaves could not vote, had their slaves count in their total population, the southern states would have a higher percentage of congressmen in the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives has representation of states based on their population, unlike how the Senate has a flat two-per-state.

If the South dominated the House of Representatives, and therefore potentially dominate Congress, laws in favor of slavery and whatever else the southern states wanted that the northern states did not could be enacted.

Answer 2

If slaves were included in the population count, they could be given a proportion of the vote. The condition on this inclusion was that the owner of said slaves could represent them and cast their votes.

The result is that the rich white minority slaveowners control a very large majority of the votes, and could have a better chance of passing laws they preferred while barring laws they disliked.

Answer 3

When the Constitutional Convention was meeting in 1787, several compromises were reached to accommodate the interests of different sections of the country. One of these involved northern worry over the south's political power in the new government they were proposing - the one we still have. The idea was that if the slaves were counted, this would give the south more seats in Congress, and thus more political power. The south, of course, was all for counting the slaves. Finally the compromise agreed to was that slaves (and Indians) would be counted as three-fifths of a person. This language is in the original of the Constitution, in the provisions calling for a census every ten years, and reapportioning the seats in Congress proportionally to the census results. The word "slave" is not used, but they are referred to as "three fifths of all other persons" than citizens. In return the south got the new national capital moved to where it is today, in the newly created Federal District of Columbia, where the City of Washington was created. This was probably not a very good trade-off for the southern states, but they were worried about northern influence in the Federal government if the capital continued to be New York City or Philadelphia. Slaves continued to count as three-fifths of a person through the 1860 census, until Constitutional Amendment made every person born in the US a citizen.

Answer 4

The South had cotton and sugarcane and needed lots of people to work for little or no money,and they wanted to keep the slaves because they needed them.The North did not. The North worked in factories,and mills.They also felt that the blacks were being treated not as workers,but as property.That's why the north willingly accepted any black that came.

Answer 5

It would give southern states more representatives in the U S House of Representatives.

Answer 6

Because there were a lot more slaves so if they were counted, the southern states would have more representatives in the House.