 The South, the slave states, wanted every single slave, although they couldn't vote, they should count as a whole person in terms of the census, which would then give the South approximately 50% of the seats in the Congress. Just like today, it's all determined by population in the states that they wanted to count the slaves as people in terms of the census, but didn't want to give them any rights for being people. The North, on the other hand, said, you know what,