Question

Which response best describes Pierce Butler’s main idea about the Three-Fifths Compromise?
A. Butler wanted enslaved people to count as less than whole people because that meant more rights for the poor.
B. Butler wanted enslaved people to count as whole people because that meant the practice of enslavement would end.
C. Butler wanted enslaved people to count as whole people because that meant more representation for the state.
D. Butler wanted enslaved people to count as less than whole people because that meant enslavement could continue.

Answer 1

C. Butler wanted enslaved people to count as whole people because that meant more representation for the state. He was a Southern slaveholder who supported counting enslaved people (at full value) to increase his state’s congressional power.