Final answer:
The Three-Fifths Compromise allowed for slaves to count as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation purposes, strengthening Southern political power while maintaining slavery.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Three-Fifths Compromise was a historical agreement made during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention that addressed the issue of how slaves would be counted for both representation and taxation purposes. It was decided that a slave would be counted as three-fifths of a person. This compromise was seen by antislavery critics as giving undue power to Southern states in Congress due to their substantial slave populations, which fortified the influence of the so-called "Slave Power."
As for the idea that Southern states wanted both to maintain slavery and retain power through representation, this would be historically accurate. They fought to have slaves counted when determining the number of their legislators to gain more seats in the House of Representatives, but did not want slaves counted for taxation purposes. Northern states opposed counting slaves for representation but were in favor of counting them for taxation.
The Southern states did not wholly accept President Abraham Lincoln's proposals for gradual compensated emancipation, nor did they willingly implement the Thirteenth Amendment initially. In the context of the Three-Fifths Compromise, it can be argued that Southern states wanted to maintain their economic institution of slavery while also leveraging it for greater political power in the federal government, which may be viewed as hypocritical by wanting to benefit from the population of enslaved individuals without granting them rights or representation.