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?
Which “they” do you speak of?
Obviously the slave states did not want to end slavery, and the states would be too divided among themselves to fight the British. Good luck telling the AP propagandists that.
You’re forgetting who owned slaves at the time...Washington, Jefferson...etc etc..
“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.
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.
We had to get the Southern states to join the Union.
“why not just end slavery right then”
Slaves were worth money - big money.
To purchase slaves often meant going into debt big time.
Slaves were thought to be essential back then - just like “undocumented” aliens are today.
John McCain was shocked to learn that American citizens would do stoop labor for $50/hour.
Because southern states would likely have not agreed to a national framework wit them as lowest population and therefore representation in govt.
Jefferson originally included a cessation or slavery clause in the declaration of independence, but Franklin advised him to remove it or risk probable southern states walking out of the Congress.
They needed the slave holding states to provide a stronger front against English efforts to retake the colonies. Without the slave holding states, they would have been conquered by the British. With the slave holding states added to their defensive capability, the British were discouraged from attempting to grab any of the states back.
Also bear in mind that in 1787, the vast majority of states were slave states.
Because at that moment, there was this superpower known as “England” that was bitter about losing them, and was wanting to kill them for treason. The military power imbalance was insane and they soon returned. The colonies had to come to a fast and dirty agreement that didn’t really please either of them fully to even have the slightest chance of survival.
The South got reduced representation, and the northerners that didn’t want slavery had to tolerate it a bit longer....to survive.
And there was an elegance to it. The south claimed slaved were not really fully human, and the north said, “Ok cool, does 3/5ths of human sound about right then?”. They used their own philosophy against them.
Had they not come to an agreement, had the South refused to join the union over insisting slaves counted fully, had the north refused to join the union over insisting slavery end immediately, the aforementioned England would have torn them to shreds, one by one.
That’s why.