The Three-Fifths Clause is perhaps the most misunderstood provision of the U.S. Constitution because the clause provides that the representation in Congress will be based on "the whole Number of free Persons" and "the three fifths of all other persons". The other persons were slaves. This provision declared that the slave states would get extra representation in congress for their slaves, even though those states treated slaves purely as property. The provision was not directly about race, but about status and allocation of political power. Free African American people were counted exactly the same way as whites. The clause provided a mathematical formula that allowed for the allocation of representatives in Congress that factored in the slave population. No slaves could vote in the country, and the clause did not even provide a voice for slaves. This was about the distribution of political power among the states