counting of slaves as three fifths was written into our constitution. that was the mistake
Disagree.
The 3/5ths compromise limited the power of the South. If they had counted slaves who could not vote and were not citizens as “full” for representation purposes, the South would have a monopoly representation in the House.
Now maybe they should not have adressed the slaves at all but they did because it was a thorny issue back then. They also inserted language to stop the import of slaves after 1808, iirc.
3/5ths was a compromise. The Northern states did not want the slaves counted in determining representation. The Southern states did. The compromise was 3/5ths phrase in Article I section 2 of the Constitution. The bigger compromise, if you call it that was the Northern states wanted to add a sentence to the Constitution, that slavery was illegal in the United States. The Southern states, wanted a sentence in the Constitution saying slavery was legal in the United States. To get around this dead locking issue, it was decided not to mention the legality/illegality of slaver in the Constitution at all. Hence the big problem 74 years later.
my point is that this 3/5ths invalidates the entire constitution in the eyes of the unwashed/uneducated. and it is cannon fodder for the left. white man privilege bs on down the line. it was a mistake to have anything related to slavery in the constitution. it would have been a protection for the document. long gone.
Women couldn’t vote either as a rule maybe they should have been counted as 4/5ths?