Slavery a founding belief of America--Why the surprise? It's EMBEDDED IN CONSTITUTION

[bobbieinok]

A slave is to be counted as 3/5 of a 'person' when calculating the number of a state's inhabitants. That was demanded by the southerners so that they would have an 'equal' voice with non slave-holding states

I think I learned this early b/c of a textbook we used in jr high social studies. It was Your Rugged Constitution
,
It went though almost sentence by sentence spelling out what was meant. At tne 3/5 passage, it marked though those line with a dark line

Well, like to any jr high aged kid, something marked out meant somebody was hiding sonething--somebody didn't want me to know something.

So I read it!

Somebody sure as heck had hidden something of major importance from me,

Never saw things in quite the same way again


Eta---I was in jr high in the early 50s

[Nature Man]

1. yup

[Doodley]

2. I am so over those who love the constitution. Try loving fellow Americans.

[Docreed2003]

5. Most people who profess to "love the Constitution" have never read it

Usually my favorite trivia question for those types is: "How many times is 'God' mentioned in the Constitution?"

[Towlie]

3. It's also embedded in The Bible.

Jesus didn't have a clue that slavery was immoral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery

[TreasonousBastard]

8. It wasn't back then-- it was a fact of life. And one all cultures almost worldwide accepted.

[Towlie]

23. So the Bible is obsolete and needs an update? Try selling that to religious people.

[Newest Reality]

4. I have also noted...

I have also noted that in the grievances to the King in the Declaration of Independence, this was the view of The Indigenous People:

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In retrospect, that has a very prejudiced and myopic view that would justify the carnage and occupation to come. There is no such thing as "Indian Savages" and anyone who thinks of an "Indian" as a catch-all term, doesn't know much about The People. They were as diverse as us and not stereotypical. The Comanches, and some other tribes were fierce warriors, for instance, and who would be best for defending the homeland from savage, greedy immigrants invading? There were peaceful tribes and even more than one belief system, etc.

I suggest people look into the wide range of varieties of various tribes from the East to the West and North and South. You would be surprised and the ideas expressed about them are an attempt at justification, not a matter of honesty and truth.

[marie999]

6. If the South did not need that to increase their population for representation in Congress,

slaves probably wouldn't have been in The Constitution at all.

[MousePlayingDaffodil]

7. No, actually . . .

. . . the slave-holding states wanted slaves to be counted as whole persons (i.e., 5/5ths) for purposes of determining a state's population, whereas those states with few or no slaves wanted slaves not to be counted at all. The "3/5ths" was the compromise at which the Framers arrived.

[Laelth]

11. Precisely. You beat me to it. n/t

-Laelth

[Coleman]

13. Thank you

The Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence was a compromise document. For it to be ratified it needed the states that were slave holders. The non-slave states didn't want them counted at all.

What would the reaction here be if the Constitution said that slaves were not to be counted at all. Even though that would have been the right thing to do, some of us would be attacking the Constitution for its bigotry. Imagine the US during this time if slaves were counted as a whole person. Increased representation for slave states in the House. Just imagine if Women were only counted as 3/5 of a person, how much faster women suffrage would have arrived.

Also another bone to pick. You are aware that the New England and Mid-Atlantic states prospered from slavery. Who do you think owned the ships used in the Triangle Trade? Whose factories benefited from the crops harvested by slaves or by the railroads built in the slave states?

[malchickiwick]

9. It is not just the 3/5 clause (I,2). It also expressly kept the Middle Passage open for 20 yrs (I,9)

And it contains a fugitive slave provision (IV, 2).

BTW, the 3/5 clause had significant and long-lasting effects. Without the extra electoral college advantage that it gave slave states, John Adams would have won a second term as president in 1800, and Andrew Jackson likely would have lost again in 1828.

[Laelth]

10. I thought that was demanded by Northerners ...

... who refused to count each slave as a “full person” because doing so would inflate the number of congresspersons coming from the South.

The South wanted each slave counted as a “full person” because that would give them more representatives in Congress. The North didn’t want the slaves counted AT ALL because not counting the slaves would increase their power in the House, proportionately.

Let’s face it. Like everything else about this country, it was a compromise, and compromises are often ugly, but don’t blame the South for the 3/5 rule. The South would have been perfectly happy to count each and every slave as a “full person” for the purposes of the census and the allocation of congressional seats.

-Laelth

[Wounded Bear]

14. Yes, it was a compromise...

that included Native Americans, too, BTW. They weren't granted citizenship until much later. A small point, but important.

[Laelth]

15. A very important point.

In 1787 there were still millions of native people in the South (much more so than in the North) who were not counted as “whole people.”

-Laelth

[Igel]

20. It's a rewrite of history to suit the present political need.

The idea was that it would increase their power in the House. And EC.

At the same time, it wasn't just the states that would get more power. If only (some) white men could vote and there was this large mass of representatives because of a large population of non-voters, each individual white male voter had increased political representation.

One could argue that families had a limit on their size. If the propertied white men in a family voted, that was likely to give families about the same political representation after accounting for size. But if you had a 8-person family and voted for 300 people ...


The same case has been made, by the way, at present. If you're the representative of a district where 40% of the population is undocumented that increases the representation not of the entire district but of those who can legally (and do legally) vote.

[gulliver]

12. Well, it's also abolished by the Constitution.

But it is true that slavery was abolished a lot later here than it was in Britain. But then Britain started it in its colonies and profited from it...

[Wounded Bear]

17. One of the reasons Southerners supported the rebellion...

was that there was a strong abolitionist movement brewing in Britain, even in the 1770's.

They knew what was coming and tried from the start to protect the "peculiar institution" that was slavery.

[gulliver]

18. Yep

[Kid Berwyn]

22. Easier to get bigly rich when someone else does the work.

Fast forward 244 years and we see the same mindset at play: the bigly rich demand America reopen before COVID-19 is under control because eh freedom and money.

[bobbieinok]

19. Our text Your Rugged Constitution clearly pointed that out

It directed us to the thirteenth and fourteenth amendments and emphasized that they replaced the 3/5 passage

[PTWB]

16. Indeed.

Northern, free states did not want slaves to be counted at all. Southern, slave states wanted slaves to be counted as a full person. They compromised at 3/5th.

Someone needs to tell this to the Mississippi elections commissioner who, just this past week, proclaimed that “blacks” are not “people” at all.

[Igel]

21. There's another point to be made.

And it's a pointed one, made consciously and intentionally.

The constitution doesn't call the people slaves. It refers to them as "persons." I've seen this referred to as a "euphemism", but even as the idea was still growing that black slaves weren't *really* people the Constitution didn't call them "slaves" but "persons." It doesn't say they're worth 3/5 of whites. Except that their number is altered when calculating representation for one purpose.

Similarly, some now avoid "slaves" and refer to "enslaved persons."

I've also seen references to the "propertied white male" voter being the only one allowed--and others saying that while a few states made this restriction, it was lacking in others and non-whites in some states could vote. Documentation's scarce, but then again, voting rolls are scarce from the time.