Prior to the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation stated that the apportionment of taxation was based on the land value in each state, causing states to depreciate the value of their land so they weren't burdened with the overwhelming amount of taxes that they had to pay. To prevent states from manipulating the numbers, Madison wanted to create a system where both taxes and the number of representatives were based on the population, so that if a state claimed too large of a population to gain more seats in the House of Representatives, they would have to pay higher taxes. While this proposal found support, it led to a major problem: the slave states had large populations of slaves, who were ineligible to vote; if they were counted in the population, the slave states would have more seats in the House.