Posted on 05/04/2021 7:16:47 PM PDT by Olog-hai
A Tennessee Republican falsely declared Tuesday that an 18th century policy designating a slave as three-fifths of a person was adopted for “the purpose of ending slavery,” commenting amid a debate over whether educators should be restricted while teaching about systematic racism in America.
During lengthy debate on the GOP-controlled House floor, several (b)lack lawmakers expressed concerns about the bill’s impact on how certain subjects would be taught in schools, specifically highlighting the Three-Fifths Compromise. The policy was made during the nation’s Constitutional Convention in 1787 and classified that three-fifths of a state’s slave population could be counted toward its total population when apportioning taxes and states’ representation in Congress.
Historians largely agree the compromise gave slaveholding states inordinate power over choosing a president — and decisions of the Continental Congress. That clout eventually faded when Northern state populations began to rapidly rise.
Rep. Justin Lafferty, who is white, stood up and talked at length about what he saw as sparking the compromise. At one point he asked colleagues to note on paper their best guess for the reasons that led to the policy.
“By limiting the number of population in the count, they specifically limited the number of representatives who would be available in the slave holding states and they did it for the purpose of ending slavery,” said Lafferty, from Knoxville. “Well before Abraham Lincoln. Well before Civil War.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
I think understanding fractions is too difficult for many people, especially of the liberal persuasion.
I could not believe when Condi Rice repeated the canard that it meant the original constitution said she was only three-fifths a person.
I think you win the dumbest comment award.
Indeed, as if there were no free states, or even freed black slaves in slave states. But the GOP-e is the GOP-e.
“If they wanted to end slavery so bad, why not just end slavery right then and and not put the Three-Fifths Compromise in the Constitution?”
It’s hard to know what point you’re making.
Virginia & South Carolina - we love & need slavery
Pennsylvania & some others - slavery is evil
People who need/want something are likely to fight harder than those merely opposing the grant of that something.
We oppose the leftist agenda. The left wants/needs its agenda, such as subsidized health insurance/state-sanctioned same-sex sodomy/housing vouchers, and typically wins.
Advocates of “cheap” imported labor are fighting to win yet another battle, even now in 2021.
Because the southern states would never have agreed to ratify the Constitution if it were seen as an instrument for ending slavery. There would have been no USA, just a bunch of small countries like Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, etc., all of which would have been easy prey for the European great powers. Accepting slavery allowed the states to unify, ratify the Constitution and form the nation that we know.
Furthermore it was widely believed that slavery was in decline anyway and would end naturally. That probably would have happened but for westward expansion and the invention of the cotton gin. In the late 18yh century, cotton was not a particularly profitable cash crop. Slaves worked more on tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations. Demand for these crops was mostly steady. The industrialization of the textile factories and the invention of the cotton gin changed the economic situation totally. Cotton became immensely profitable, and the cotton gin allowed unskilled slaves to process the crop easily. This led to an increase in slavery, which was exacerbated by the expansion of cotton plantations westward into Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and later Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. The net result was that slavery, rather than dying out as the Founders thought it would, became entrenched in Southern society, so much so that only the cataclysmic events of the 1860s could end it.
I don’t think so.
Until 1870, only white men could vote. And it continued longer in some places thanks to several southern states which imposed special rules on blacks exercising their voting rights such as literacy tests.
I know you don’t think so.
Thanks. I had just decided that must be it.
George Washington wanted to have use of his domestics while President and living in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania law declared that slaves were to be freed after spending six months in the state.
George Washington planned to rotate his domestics before six months were up and they qualified for freedom under PA law.
One of his female servants bolted before GW could return her to Virginia.
Once the six months were up, she could claim her freedom, and did.
GW sued to get her back, but since she was brought to PA by Washington instead of fleeing on her own accord, she never met the Article IV, Section 2 requirement of “escaping into another” state.
GW lost his case.
She said she had nothing against GW, but merely wanted to have her freedom, which was upheld by the PA court.
GW had another slave, a cook named Hercules, who bolted and was lost to history and GW.
https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/hercules/
If they wanted to end slavery so bad, why not just end slavery right then and and not put the Three-Fifths Compromise in the Constitution?
At the time of the Constitution, slavery was dying in the U.S. not especially for moral reasons but economic ones. Large-scale slavery simply wasn’t worth its cost. But the invention of the cotton gin changed that.
What people forget is that the Constitution held the international slave trade could not be limited for 20 years after its adoption (another compromise), but Congress did outlaw it as soon as the Constitution allowed. And the Confederation Congress outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory before the Constitutional Convention, so we have a decent idea of the Founders’ view on slavery.
That’s completely true.
“Accepting slavery allowed the states to unify, ratify the Constitution and form the nation that we know.”
Who accepted slavery?
Did those who were held in slavery voluntarily accept slavery?
Were slaves consulted to see if they accepted slavery?
I know a lawyer that was involved in a large corporate lawsuit that went very long and lots of media attention. When it was all done (2 years??) I asked him how he felt.
“Well, we were able to get all sides to agree on a compromise so it’s over now, and everybody agrees. I don’t know - I guess I’m glad. But - it was such a, well - a compromise.”
If they had only known the advantages of sharecropping.
For one third share of the crop as rent, black cultivators got what they needed.
For signing a few contracts and fronting some seed money, plantation owners got to sit back and relax in Southern comfort.
I know. I roll my eyes at people on this one. Complete, unashamed, and total ignorance.
We had to get the Southern states to join the Union.
One of the reasons for independence was that the King had prohibited several of the colonies from abolishing slavery. Jefferson wrote a lovely anti-slavery clause.
However, the Continental Congress had passed a rule that all colonies would have to vote for independence or it would fail. The Carolinas objected and threatened to kill independence.
Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin made the political calculation “independence first, slavery later” because without independence, they would have had no chance of ending slavery.
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