Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The wording actually assumes they are full persons. It distinguishes between the contribution to the census from free persons and the contribution from other persons. It's 3/5 of the number of other persons that gets added to the number of free persons. It's not that slaves are 3/5 of a person.
And for the record, it was those who opposed slavery who didn't want them counted and those who favored it who did, because counting them as full persons would mean more representation in Congress for their states (and yet the voting for those states wouldn't involve the slaves voting, of course, so it's even more influence for the slave-holders if they counted fully).
If we take the constitutional wording to imply that slaves were only viewed as 3/5 of a person, we should also conclude that abolitionists must not have thought slaves were real people, because they wanted them counted as zero, and slaveowners must have thought they were indeed real people, because they wanted them counted as full persons. It's not as if those who favored slavery were defining slaves as less than full persons. It was those who opposed slavery who didn't want their slaves counting toward representation when they didn't have representation who were behind this.
http://parablemania.ektopos.com/archives/2010/04/three-fifths.html
There are other places on the net that explain this as well. Matthews is an idiot and the left needs to be called out on this one.
And for the record, it was those who opposed slavery who didn't want them counted and those who favored it who did, because counting them as full persons would mean more representation in Congress for their states (and yet the voting for those states wouldn't involve the slaves voting, of course, so it's even more influence for the slave-holders if they counted fully).
The original intent of the 3/5ths compromise was for purposes of determining wealth and therefore taxation. The south, dominated by democrats who wished to have their cake and eat it too, protested vehemently against allowing indians and slaves to count as anything at all.
Then, when it became apparent that these "non-entities" had value in terms of congressional reprepresentation, they flip-flopped and wanted them counted as "whole and complete" - but only in the pure abstract towards a representational tally - not as human beings.
One of the most ridiculous so-called "debates" appeared on Hannity this week between Santorum and Sharpton, with Hannity contributing his usual inane points along the way. It began as a debate about Santorum's use of the word "black man" in a recent interview concerning the subject of abortion.
Then, both fell into the "3/5 of a person" trap, revealing the ignorance of both about America's founding philosophy and the rationale of the 3/5 designation. Santorum would have been wise to have kept that out of his argument. One might not have expected Sharpton to understand and articulate the points you made in your post; but, Santorum should have known better.