University of Wisconsin Center for the Study of the American Constitution, Apportionment of the House of Representatives in 1787 and 1792

As is described in this article from the University of Wisconsin Center for the Study for the American Constitution, population was an issue in politics and constitution-making throughout the Revolutionary Era, and the U.S. Constitution included several compromises involving population. The Constitution gave each state two U.S. Senators, which satisfied the small states that had fewer people. The compromise between Northern and Southern states over the House of Representatives was embodied in Article I, section 2 of the Constitution, which provided that Representatives should be apportioned “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 “other Persons” were enslaved people. Sixty-five members of the first House of Representatives were thus apportioned among the states, but Southerners were convinced that the South and the Southwest would grow faster than the North and therefore secured a consitutional requirement for a national census every ten years to be followed by reapportionment of the House. Our team created this graph to compare population estimates from 1787, when members of the House were first apportioned among the states, with those from 1792, after the first census. Corresponding to the population estimates are numeric labels indicating the number of representatives apportioned for each state. Data for the graph come from a table compiled by theCenter for the Study of the American Constitution with estimates of population likely used by the Constitutional Convention in assigning Representatives to the states; the number of Representatives apportioned by the Constitution of 1787; population estimates derived from the Census of 1790 (the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed.” and the total slave population); the population used for reapportionment obtained by adding to the non-slave population and three-fifths of the slave population; and the number of Representatives assigned each state by the Apportionment Act of 1792.