I would challenge the premise of this question. The meaning of âdotardâ does not change according to individual whim. The other answers given so far are spot on, but it has nothing to do with what it means âto themâ. I would say even that the usual pressures on the English language for words to shift meaning over time are not acting on this word nearly as strongly, since it seems to be out of common use these days.
There are several reasons why the Great Compromise and the Three-Fifths Compromise involved so much debate and discussion, but mainly because slavery was so contested and nobody wanted the government to have too much power. Comments.
The Three-Fifths Compromise greatly augmented southern political power. In the Continental Congress, where each state had an equal vote, there were only five states in which slavery was a major institution. Thus the southern states had about 38 percent of the seats in the Continental Congress. Because of the 1787 Three-Fifths Compromise, the southern states had nearly 45 percent of the seats in the first U.S. Congress, which took office in 1790.