So they could count more votes
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Southern states wanted slaves to be counted in a state's population because it would increase their representation in the House of Representatives and thus give them more political power. This was due to the Three-Fifths Compromise in the U.S. Constitution, which counted each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of representation.
The Southern states in the United States wanted slaves to count in their total population for representation in Congress. This led to the Three-Fifths Compromise in the Constitution, where slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of determining representation in the House of Representatives.
No, a large majority of the southern population did not own slaves. In fact, only a small percentage of white families in the southern states owned slaves during the antebellum period.
Southern states wanted to count slaves as part of their populations for the purpose of representation in the United States Congress. By counting slaves as part of the population, southern states could increase their representation in Congress, despite slaves not having the right to vote.
Southern states wanted to count slaves because the House of Representatives is based on population. The census is taken to determine how many representatives each state gets. Since the south was mostly made up of slaves, it would get more representatives if they were counted.
Enslaved African Americans composed about one third of the population of the southern states before the American Civil War.