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To: FreeTally
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 obvious (and wrong!) conclusion is that 3/5 of all other persons meant slaves, and therefore the founding fathers thought blacks were only 3/5 human.

The careful reader, though, looks at the paragraph as a whole: what are the founding fathers trying to accomplish here? They were careful not to say that "negros" counted 3/5s of a person, but rather, all "non-free" people were 3/5th of a person. Why? This is used to determine representation in Congress--the 3/5s clause, although widely mis-interpreted as being some "anti-black" sentiment by the founding fathers, was a way for the Northern states to punish the Southern states by reducing their numbers in the legislature, so long as they continued to have slavery in the South. By the Southern states freeing their slaves, their population would increase, as determined by the census, and they would be on equal footing with the Northern states in terms of representation.

Not only did the founding fathers view blacks as fully human, they incorporated a punishment to slave holding states within the Constitution.

45 posted on 07/23/2002 8:23:41 AM PDT by Viva Le Dissention
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To: Viva Le Dissention
>>The careful reader, though, looks at the paragraph as a whole<<

FreeTally is not a careful reader.

61 posted on 07/23/2002 8:49:15 AM PDT by Jim Noble
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