Fifth Grade Constitution Unit

Lesson 4

Title: The Three-Fifths Compromise

Grade Level: 5th

Unit of Study: Constitution

Abstract: Students will be able to describe the issues over representation and how the Three-fifths Compromise addressed these issues.

Key Concepts: Personal beliefs influence government. The belief that representation should be fair led to conflict and then compromise.

GLCE:

U3.3.4 Describe the issues over representation and slavery the Framers faced at the

Constitutional Convention and how they were addressed in the Constitution.

Sequence of Activities:

1.  Using the included or other resources, discuss the issue of counting slaves as people rather than property and the conflict this caused between Southern and Northern states at the Constitutional Convention. Explain how the Three-Fifths Compromise was reached to address this issue.

2.  To facilitate understanding of the issue, use the following activity:

·  Pairs of students are given a card stating the total number of people and the number of slaves in one of the 13 states.

·  Each pair must calculate how many votes their state would have with and without the Three-fifths Compromise.

·  Each pair will present their information and the reasoning behind their decision.

Total Population/Slave Population

Connecticut – 250,000/2,800

Delaware – 60,000/9,000

Georgia – 80,000/30,000

Maryland – 300,000/100,000

Massachusetts – 400,000/0

New Hampshire – 150,000/150

New Jersey – 200,000/11,000

New York – 350,000/20,000

North Carolina – 400,000/100,000

Pennsylvania – 450,000/4,000

Rhode Island – 70,000/1,000

South Carolina – 250,000/110,000

Virginia – 750,000/300,000

Or

·  Using the graph made in lesson 2, students will graph over the state population bars, the slave populations of each state at this time in history. Discuss.

3.  RAFT writing: you are a delegate at the Constitutional Convention; write a letter to your family relating your feelings about whether or not slaves should be counted in the state’s population.

Connections:

English Language Arts – Letter writing

Mathematics – Graphing and data analysis

Instructional Resources:


Equipment/Manipulative

Student Resources

Teacher Resources

We The People, Lesson 10


This work by Calhoun ISD Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.