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Slaves And Representation Research Paper

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Nazmul Hossain
History and writing 190
October 12, 2015 Slaves and Representation The United States constitution was created to have enough power to govern effectively and enough weakness to limit it. A large part of that power and weakness comes from the congress and its representatives. Representation within the government became an issue because everyone wanted equal voice. The Three-fifth compromise was an agreement between these diverse opinions to create a proper system of representation. It was a temporary fix to the issue for a much larger problem. The Three-Fifths Compromise is the third clause in Article one, Section two. Article one is aimed towards Legislative branch and specifies the job and limits of the branch. Section …show more content…
The Article of Confederation was an attempt towards creating a national government that upholds the value of the revolution. But it was not a long term solution. The Confederation created a very weak central government that gives too much power to the states. This was a result of peoples fear in a strong central government. However, having a weak government led to many issues. A major issue that the central government faced was not having the ability to tax. Economic issues did not allow the government to have a strong or large army to protect the nation from threats. As a result the delegates from the states came up with the idea for a new government. A new and stronger central government. Under the constitution, the government would have the power to tax, veto state laws, and other jobs. While states can make local laws that affect the individual state and was required to follow the federal …show more content…
There were movements to abolish slavery, even when the constitution was written. Thomas Jefferson went as far as adding a section in the constitution to criticize slavery. However, this was a draft and it was removed. Even though the constitution never disapproved of slavery, it did not approve of it. The constitutional writers, wrote so that it does not specify slavery. In the Three-fifth clause, instead of writing slaves, they wrote “three-fifths of all other persons.” By not specifying slavery, it allowed the future generation to have a chance of changing the law they are unable to. They believed that it was a temporary agreement because the founders believed that slavery would slowly

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