Slaves were property. They were not considered people in terms of having rights and needing services and protections from the government. Allowing them to count as 3/5ths of a person for the purposes of Congressional representation was 3/5ths too many, and gave the slave states a disproportionately high number of seats in Congress.
“They were not considered people in terms of having rights and needing services and protections from the government.”
Just to be clear, what you have written was the view of northern slave states at the time the constitution was written. The southern slave states view was that slaves should be counted as full persons for the purposes of representation in Congress. No states at the time proposed that slaves vote. No states at the time proposed that women vote.
Actually, the issue was to limit the number of representatives in Congress. The Abolitionists did not want to go on record as stating that a person was property. So they had to count them somehow. The 3/5 was a compromise that allowed both sides to save face.
To think about it, our founding fathers were able to compromise about friggin’ slavery, but today’s Congress cannot agree on the color of the sky.
Tells you something about the times we live in.
You can argue it any way you want to, but the South wanted them counted one for one. You can call it an advantage if you like, but they gave up 40% of the slave population for counting Congressional representation. Without this provision, the U.S. Constitution would not have been ratified.