The only delegate who pounced on the three-fifths “compromise” was Massachusetts abolitionist and future vice president Elbridge Gerry. “Blacks are property, and are used [in the South]… as horses and cattle are [in the North],” Gerry stammered out. So “why should their representation be increased to the southward on account of the number of slaves, [rather] than [on the basis of] horses or oxen to the north?”
