“We used to count black Americans as 3/5 of a person.”
That’s in the title of a Washington Post article published in August of 2015.[ref]https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/21/we-used-to-count-black-americans-as-35-of-a-person-instead-of-reparations-give-them-53-of-a-vote/?utm_term=.451c3084892b[/ref] Such insinuations are commonplace in liberal and progressive echo chambers. This is an aggressive attack on our constitution. Did our constitution, which was founded on the principle of “all men are created equal,” really treat blacks as 3/5 of a person?
NO. Absolutely not. This is nothing more than liberal propaganda. These attacks are solely designed to undermine faith in our constitution. If a large sector of the population believes the constitution said they were less than a full human, then they won’t care at all if our government abides by it. This facilitates the left’s trampling of this “living document.”
What’s ironic is the compromise helped black Americans. A one-fifths compromise would have been better for blacks. In fact, a ZERO-fifths compromise would have been even better.
If you don’t understand the three-fifths compromise, you may be taken aback at my statements. Am I saying blacks should not have counted as a person? Am I saying they should have had no vote? Certainly not – and please allow me to explain myself!
In order to determine the impact the three-fifths compromise had on black Americans – and what it said about them, we first need to understand exactly what it said and did. The common misconception is that the three-fifths compromise either said:
- Blacks’ votes counted as three-fifths of a vote
or
- Blacks counted as three-fifths of a person
The first point is simply not true. The constitution did not say whether or not blacks could vote nor how much weight their vote had. The individual states determined who could vote in their elections.
The second point is also not true. Yet it is somewhat close to the truth – in particular in sounds very similar to the truth, and this is where a great deal of confusion lies. Lets’ take a look at the exact wording of the three-fifths compromise (it is located in the third paragraph of the first article of the constitution):
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.[ref]http://constitutionus.com/[/ref]
The compromise involved determining how much representative power each state had in the House of Representatives. Originally, a state got one representative for every 30,000 people. Today, the total is capped, and the amount of representatives each state gets is apportioned according to their percentage of the nation’s population. The three-fifths compromise caused all slaves to be counted as three-fifths of a person towards determining the states representative population. Let’s break this down.
First, the three-fifths compromise did not say blacks were to be counted as three-fifths of a person. It was all non-free persons (excluding Indians who were not taxed), and while the vast majority of slaves were blacks not all of them were. In addition, free blacks were counted as one person. Second, this counting said nothing about the value of the individual or their merit as a human being. Instead, it was simply for determining the population figure which was used for allocating the state its number of representatives in the House. Third, and most importantly, this compromise weakened the political power the slave states had. In turn, it strengthened the political power of free states.
This last point is why the three-fifths compromise was good for black Americans. In particular, it was good for black Americans who were slaves (as well as all other slaves). Why? What portions of a slave state’s population did their representatives in the House represent? The free persons! The representatives had zero incentive to support slaves, as the states did not allow slaves to vote. On the other hand, they had every incentive to support the slave masters, as going against them would certainly cause political harm! Furthermore, the increased power of free states helped the slaves because these states were continually working to decrease and eventually abolish slavery.
This is why a one-fifths compromise would have been better for many blacks! The slave states would have been even weaker, and the free states would have been even stronger.
Earlier I wrote that saying the three-fifths compromise said blacks were 3/5 of a person was nothing more than liberal propaganda. Let’s return to the cited article. Take a look at how the author explained the compromise:
Thanks to a compromise between Southern slaveholders who wanted enslaved blacks counted in the population, for the sake of boosting Southern congressional representation, and Northern whites who didn’t, the framers enshrined the three-fifths clause in the Constitution. This agreement set the census value of a slave as 60 percent of the value of a free person. Even after the 13th Amendment neutralized the political (and moral) compromise by abolishing slavery, Jim Crow laws, which contravened the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equality, stopped blacks from voting. The just answer today is to invert that ratio. If black Americans were once counted as three-fifths of a person, let each African American voter now count as five-thirds.[ref]https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/21/we-used-to-count-black-americans-as-35-of-a-person-instead-of-reparations-give-them-53-of-a-vote/?utm_term=.451c3084892b[/ref]
The sleight of hand is truly repulsive. The author begins with a dose of truth. He admits without the three-fifths compromise Southern slave states’ congressional representation would have been “boosted.” Next, he talks about how “Northern whites” didn’t want this. Exactly why is “whites” included? These “whites” wanted to abolish slavery and free blacks. This is simply mentioned to increase the racial tension in the author’s writing. Next, he said the agreement “set the census value of a slave as 60 percent of the value of a free person.” While technically true, if someone is not reading closely or fails to understand the preceding sentences, they may easily believe it is saying slaves were 60% of a person [period]. Also, his title says exactly that! Which is DISGUSTING. The truth is, we [the constitution] used to count slaves (not blacks) as 3/5 of a person in order to weaken the power of slave holding states. Cutting off the latter half of that sentence creates a headline which is nothing more than intentionally deceptive.
Next is the aforementioned sleight of hand. He immediately transitions from the three-fifths compromise into Jim Crow laws. The two had absolutely nothing to do with each other. In fact, the Jim Crow laws violated the amended constitution. So the constitution had nothing to do with stripping blacks of their voting rights, and it never said blacks were three-fifths of a person (in terms of real value) as his last sentence implies. So the author starts with a drip of truth, and by the end of the paragraph he has falsely tied the compromise to Jim Crow and restated the lie that our constitution said blacks were counted as three-fifths of a person. It’s a lie of omission. By omitting how this lesser value actually helped the slaves, the author is knowingly deceiving his readers.
This is why I despise the media. The mainstream media has no intention of telling you the truth. Instead, they have an agenda, and they gleefully lie to push it. Lying and saying our constitution said blacks were three-fifths of a person serves the agenda. Anyone who says that and leaves it at that knows they are saying the three-fifths compromise was anti-black (and hence our constitution was). Nothing could be further from the truth. Without the compromise, who knows how the increased power of slaveholders would have impacted the fight against slavery. Abraham Lincoln may not have been elected, and slavery could have lasted for many more decades.
Many of our constitutional framers wanted to abolish slavery. They realized the nation could not be formed by immediately doing so. Instead, they had faith that America’s principled government would eventually end slavery and settled for what they could get. The slave trade was abolished, and the power of slave states was weakened by the three-fifths compromise. Eventually, the free states were victorious in their cause, and the blight of slavery was removed from our nation.
The three-fifths compromise helped end slavery in America. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
This is the beginning of a series on slavery in America. Stay tuned for the following posts!