Jon Kukla is right about the origins of the 3/5 number in the
Confederation period. The story is spelled out in detail in Don
Fehrenbacher's _The Slaveholding Republic_. Interesting echoes of the
3/5 compromise persist in the 15th Amendment, in the provision allowing
for the reduction of a state's representation based upon the proportion
of its citizens denied the franchise. So you could deny the vote, but
you had to pay the full price. Some Northern Republicans threatened to
apply in the 1890s when the South began disenfranchising
African-Americans but never brought it to bear.

Jim Hershman
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