People often misunderstand the thinking behind the way slaves were to be counted as 3/5 of a person (from Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution).
It is used to show that the founders saw blacks as inferior. In reality, it was a PRO-freedom position.
There were many in this country that wanted to abolish slavery at the time the Constitution was written. In fact, over 80% of the founding fathers were active abolishonists. Representation in the House of Representatives is determined by population. The greater the population, the greater the influence in the Congress. By counting slaves as just 3/5 of a person for census purposes, the slave states would have less influence and slavery might be abolished.
It was not meant to say that slaves were worth less than a full person in human terms. It was not about treating blacks as 3/5 of a person, just counting them that way to help work toward their freedom.
6 comments:
The problem with your thesis is that counting slaves would not lead to slaves having any representation, because they lacked the right to vote (and do much of anything else for that matter). The power gained by their enumeration would have gone straight to the "white land onwers".
Many of the founders were in fact actively pushing abolition. The argument simply could not be won and gain the acceptance of all the states. As you point out, the southern states for sure would have rejected it. The atmosphere was so divisive on that point, that they were not only unable to abolish slavery with the Constitution, but they added a clause preventing an end to slavery prior to 1808 (Article 1, Section 9).
Another important point is that being called 3/5 of a person by the Constitution was 3/5 more than they were considered prior to it. That coupled with the declaration the "all men are created equal" was at least a start at bringing freedom to all men.
I admire your good intention to make that clause of the Constitution sound as a step toward the abolition of slavery. I'd love to believe that myself but, to our big shame, that's just not truth.
All it was, was a political compromise to get the already ideologically divided North and South united under one government and have a Constitution that's (mostly) acceptable to both sides.
If you study the historic circumstances around the time of the ratification of the Constitution you'll find that the Southern states had huge slave population (South Carolina even over 50%), while the Northern states had very little slaves. Since the number of the representatives in Congress would depent on the number of free people living in a state that would mean that the Northern states would have far more representatives than the Southern.
The Southern representatives wanted to count the slaves as the free people so that on the account of their number they could be able to ellect more representatives in Congress, while the Northern reps did not want that, partly because that would make the Southern states far more powerful.
The 3/5 clause came as a compromise, where the Southern states had used the number of slaves to their advantage to a degree, and yet would not overpower the number of the Northern representatives in Congress.
Sad chapter in our history. The more I study the foundation of the USA the more I get disillusioned and dissapointed. I think that we've been fed a myth of honorable, valiant, God-fearing, freedom-loving etc Founding Fathers. In reality they were just people with interests, and were not as nearly as noble as we make them look.
You are right, of course, there are always political forces at play. Much of what elected officials to do have more to do with increasing their own power rather than doing what is right.
But don't let cynicism of our current government project back to a time where I believe it was much less abusive. I think there were a lot of God-fearing, freedom-loving Founding Fathers, despite the huge attack that has been mounted against them in recent years.
Finally, part of being "honorable" is standing behind your words, which is hard to do as "anonymous", so please don't be afraid to identify yourself next time.
The reality of it is this.The blacks were not given any status as to the rights to vote.They were property not people.The slave states wanted to count them to increase there seats in Congress. The northern states did not want to count the slaves as people.The reason being it would have given the Slave states more representation in Congress with out the slaves having any ability to vote.This would have favored the south by fiat.
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