Americans across the free states soon added their own calls for repeal of the three-fifths clause. Writing from LaPorte County, Indiana, petitioners suggested that if the ostensible human chattel belonging to white southerners continued to be enumerated, then “the animals belonging to the free states” should likewise be counted. Residents of Ashtabula County, Ohio, objected that “one portion of the United States should have a property representation while the other has not.”
