Question

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; and until such
enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three,
Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-
York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten,
North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
What process does this excerpt from the Constitution describe?

Answer 1

The quoted excerpt describes the apportionment of representation and direct taxes among states based on population, counting three-fifths of enslaved individuals, which is part of the Three-Fifths Compromise in the original text of the U.S. Constitution.

Step-by-step explanation:

The passage you quoted describes the apportionment process by which the United States allocates representation in the House of Representatives and levies direct taxes among the states. This process is based on state populations as determined by a census that occurs every ten years. Specifically, the passage reflects the Three-Fifths Compromise, an agreement made during the 1787 Constitutional Convention that determined that for purposes of representation and taxation, three-fifths of the enslaved African-American population would be counted alongside the free population.

The excerpt also stipulates that each state is guaranteed at least one Representative regardless of population size and sets the maximum number of constituents per Representative at thirty thousand. This method of apportionment remained in effect until the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, which changed the representation to include all persons in each state (excluding non-taxed Native Americans), shifting the dynamics post-Civil War.