Why did Northern states fight against having enslaved people counted as full citizens?
A. Northern states knew that they would politically benefit if their population was lower than Southern states.
B. Northern states fought to have enslaved people counted as full citizens.
C. The South would benefit from having a high population for high political power in the House of Representatives.
D. Northern states viewed enslaved people as property, thus they believed that enslaved people should not be counted as full citizens.
C. The South would benefit from having a high population for high political power in the House of Representatives.
The correct answer is C. The South would benefit from having a high population for high political power in the House of Representatives. Northern states opposed counting enslaved people as full citizens because they recognized that the South would be able to gain more political power in the House of Representatives if enslaved people were counted towards their population. This would give the Southern states greater influence in the government and potentially impact policy decisions in favor of the institution of slavery.
The correct answer is C. The South would benefit from having a high population for high political power in the House of Representatives.
To arrive at this answer, we need to analyze the historical context of the time. During the drafting of the U.S. Constitution, there was a debate over how enslaved individuals should be counted for the purposes of apportioning seats in the House of Representatives. Southern states, which had a large enslaved population, wanted to count them as full citizens. This was because the number of seats in the House was determined by each state's population.
On the other hand, Northern states objected to counting enslaved individuals as full citizens. They did so for multiple reasons. Firstly, they saw enslaved people as property and not as citizens who could enjoy the privileges and protections of citizenship. Furthermore, Northern states were aware that counting enslaved individuals as full citizens would disproportionately increase the political power of the Southern states. This is because the more population a state had, the more seats it could have in the House of Representatives. By including the enslaved population in their count, the Southern states sought to gain an advantage in terms of representation and political power.
Therefore, Northern states fought against having enslaved people counted as full citizens because they knew that the South would benefit from having a high population for high political power in the House of Representatives. This issue was ultimately resolved through the Three-Fifths Compromise, which counted each enslaved person as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportioning seats in Congress.