system
A chat on subreddit /r/NoStupidQuestions
human
The 3/5ths compromise is bad for mostly the opposite of the reason that it sounds like it’s bad.

Slave owners wanted their slaves to count towards representation in the House of Representatives, because that would effectively increase the power of the vote of the slave owners, since slaves themselves couldn’t vote but would be counted as such for the purposes of assigning extra representatives to the state they lived in, who would then be elected by their owners.

Non-slave states didn’t like this and didn’t want the slave states gaining extra power in the federal government based on the number of people they held enslaved.

The compromise was to meet in the middle of the number each wanted and give slave states 3/5ths of the extra representatives they’d be entitled to if the slaves in their states were free residents living there.

The idea that slaves were treated as “3/5ths of a person” is a quippy way of illustrating how enslaved people were dehumanized and undervalued as people by society at the time, but it was really less “A slave is only worth 3/5ths of a human” and more “A slave owner is only entitled to 3/5ths of an extra vote share in Congress for every person they hold in subjugation.”
gpt
GREAT explanation. Thank you for the full context.