Posted on 05/08/2021 4:39:32 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat
It was neither, it was simply a compromise to preserve the Union.
At the time slaveholders wanted their slaves not counted for purposes of proportional taxation, but fully counted for purposes of representation.
So 3/5 was the compromise which made sense of contradictory positions and made the new Constitution ratify-able.
By 1787 Massachusetts was a free state and four others were freer than before -- Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island & New Hampshire had begun gradual abolition.
Eight states, including New York & New Jersey had not begun gradual abolition.
jeffersondem: "You garble historical facts, make assumptions, and arrive at conclusions that can not be supported with formal documentation."
Spoken like a true Democrat -- projecting your own mental processes onto others.
In 1787 slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts and was being gradually abolished in four other states.
In 1776 about half of Northern delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence owned slaves.
In 1787 none of the Northern delegates who signed the Constitution owned slaves.
But slaveholders did insist on protecting slavery in the Constitution as their price for supporting it.
Northerners in 1787 wanted Union more than abolition, just as they did in 1861.
“Replace “Northerners” with “Southerners” and your statement (many Northerners historically have opposed equality) would be equally true.”
It is not unusual for people from up North to seek a moral equivalency with the South as you have done here.
Just for the purpose of this post, let’s stipulate that you are correct: Northerners and Southerners have equal records of opposing equality.
Now we can forever dismiss the notion that the North fought for some high moral purpose like “freeing the slaves.”
But fight and kill they did, and for an important reason: because they felt it was in their political and economic best self interest.
Sure, they were in 1775, but by 1787 five Northern states had outlawed slavery or begun abolition.
In 1787 Congress outlawed the expansion of slavery into the Northwest Territories at the recommendation of, among others, Thomas Jefferson.
In 1787 virtually all Founders supported the idea of gradual abolition and many, like Jefferson, took important steps in that direction.
That's an interesting comment...
So let's consider, if it is true that Northern freed-blacks were treated worse than Southern freed-blacks then you would expect to see them moving -- net-net -- more from North to South than South to North.
That would be solid evidence of your claim.
And you can present such evidence?
At the time of the Civil War, many felt that equality meant that one human being should not own another, and have complete control over that person's life. For many after the war it meant that Blacks and Whites wouldn't have separate bathrooms and separate drinking fountains, and that African-Americans shouldn't be denied the vote. It didn't necessarily mean that everyone would be living together.
Virtually nobody accepted today's thinking about equality, but that didn't mean that everyone accepted the same degree of inequality. There was a difference there between many Northerners and Southerners that you ignore in your word games.
You might consider that most Northerners now aren't especially self-righteous or proud about what Northerners may have thought and how they may have behaved in the past. They just resent the sort of nonsensical games you play with history.
“In 1787 slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts and was being gradually abolished in four other states. In 1776 about half of Northern delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence owned slaves. In 1787 none of the Northern delegates who signed the Constitution owned slaves.”
And by 1790, 13 of the 13 original states had voted to enshrine slavery into the United States Constitution.
Plus, consider that in the same year even slaveowners voted to keep slavery out of the Northwest territories.
1787 - the same year the Constitution was written.
Perhaps this is the solid evidence you are looking for:
https://newrepublic.com/article/86140/african-american-census-migrate-south
https://www.reimaginerpe.org/18-2/sullivan
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/black-migration-south-entrepreneurs/2020/03/01/id/956417/
https://www.melanoidnation.org/why-are-blacks-returning-to-the-south/
jeffersondem: "It is not unusual for people from up North to seek a moral equivalency with the South as you have done here."
There's already plenty of confusion over terms like "equality", "equally" and "equivalency", even before our "Woke" crowd throws its newest monkey-wrench term, "equity", into the gears.
Now our FRiend jeffersondem wants to further confuse by suggesting a moral equivalency between Northern abolition and Southern slavery!
How can he do this?
Well, if you're a Democrat, words only mean what you want them to at the moment, and so Northern abolition being less than perfect "equality" is therefore morally equivalent to Southern slavery, also less than perfect "equality".
jeffersondem: "Just for the purpose of this post, let’s stipulate that you are correct: Northerners and Southerners have equal records of opposing equality.
Now we can forever dismiss the notion that the North fought for some high moral purpose like “freeing the slaves.”"
And you thought I was kidding, but there it is!
As to who, if anyone, fought a Civil War to defend slavery and who, if anyone, fought to free the slaves -- I think we can well agree here on an equivalency: as many from the South fought to defend slavery as fought from the North to free the slaves.
Others fought for other reasons, but there were equivalent numbers on both sides who fought over slavery.
Does anybody disagree?
However, contrary to later claims from the likes of Crazy Roger Taney and DiogenesLamp, not a single one of them ever voted to make States-rights to abolition "unconstitutional".
The slave states wanted all 964,201 to be counted, which would have given Alabama more representatives in the House, and allowed the slave states to control Congress.
The northern states wanted NO slaves counted, but then the slave states would have refused to join, and we would have had the Confederacy 70 years earlier, with no Civil War to end it.
Those articles are pretty solid evidence today that economic conditions in Northern Big Cities are not as attractive as they were in, say, WWII.
But they say nothing about how well freed-blacks were treated, North or South, before the Civil War.
My understanding is that, net-net, the movements of African Americans before the Civil War were mostly, if not entirely, from South to North.
That suggests, regarding those who understood these things the best, that however "imperfect" were Northern understandings of "equality" they were still superior to "equality" in slave-states.
New York state did not abolish slavery until 1827
https://history.nycourts.gov/when-did-slavery-end-in-new-york/
New Jersey had slaves until 1865
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_New_Jersey
Alabama was not a state in 1787 and so had nothing to do with it.
The real issue in 1787 was that slaveholders wanted to count no slaves for purposes of taxation.
At the same time they wanted to count all slaves for purposes of representation.
Northerners said, in effect: "you can't have it both ways."
So 3/5 was the compromise which made sense of contradictory positions and made the new Constitution ratify-able.
As for what would have happened, had the Constitution failed to ratify -- the old Articles of Confederation would remain in effect and, doubtless, others would have gone back to the proverbial drawing board to try again.
In 1788 there were as many Northern anti-Federalists as Southern and slavery was not the major issue it would later become.
No, it was about a tactic to help win the war, and the same tactic was employed by Lord Dunmore in the Revolutionary war.
Sure, it was sold as an act of humanity and justice, but they refused to apply this "act of humanity and justice" where they held control, and only applied it to areas still fighting them.
After the war, they simply wanted to break the economic engine of the south so it would not be used against them. That, and political advantage it gave them to get the slaves voting exclusively for the conquerors would allow them to pass any laws they liked in Congress.
It was about power. Raw power, and it was always about power. They didn't have noble reasons, they had the most evil of reasons which they decorated up to appear as noble reasons.
You can't keep five slave states and then claim you cared about the slaves, but only those in enemy territory.
It is reasonable to include economic conditions as one of several possible reasons for human migration.
Unlike the poster in post #66 who eschewed the multicausal explanation in an attempt to make a partisan point.
Said he: “So let's consider, if it is true that Northern freed-blacks were treated worse than Southern freed-blacks then you would expect to see them moving — net-net — more from North to South than South to North.
That would be solid evidence of your claim.”
In post #66 there is no consideration of economic conditions in the destroyed, occupied post-war South. No consideration that many people, white and black, moved from areas where few businesses were hiring to areas where many businesses were hiring.
Thank you for pointing out the inadequacies of post #66.
Are you making the oft-heard argument that slavery was not constitutional because “the word” does not appear in the Constitution?
I thought that theory went out with Lincoln's first inaugural address.
Must I summon the 16th president here?
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