Exposing the Three-Fifths Of a Person Myth
Most young black teens from an early age are often given inaccurate historical
accounts about slavery in America.
Most of these assertions have more to do with emmotions than with the facts.
One popular slavery myth that gets pounded over an over is the the "Three fifths rule"..which according to black leftist ingrained into law that blacks were subhuman.
Leading many to think that we should have been counted fully.
The history behind this is much more complex as the piece below will try
to explain.
This is from a PBS's documentory on George Washington!
It is sometimes wrongly said that the famous Three-Fifths compromise meant that the founders considered slaves as only partial human beings. In fact, the compromise had nothing to do with the human worth of the individual slave. States with slaves wanted to count all of their slaves in the state’s population because that would yield more representatives in Congress.
The opponents of slavery, noting that slaves had no rights of citizenship including the vote, argued that slaves should not be counted at all for purposes of representation. In the end, the compromise was to count three-fifths of the state’s slaves in the total population. In another words, for every five slaves, three of would be added to the population count used to determine representation in the House of Representatives.
The Slavery Compromises
Since representation in the House of Representatives was to be based on population, a debate arose over whether slaves should be counted in a states population. According to James Madisons diary, the issue of slavery was the most divisive subject at the convention. While many of the Founding Fathers including George Washington viewed slavery as inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, they knew that there was little chance of abolishing slavery at the time.
After all, if those opposed to slavery insisted on its abolition, slave states could have walked out of the convention and formed their own nation with a pro-slavery constitution. So the issue of slavery would require compromise if the United States were to survive. Washington and the other Founders hoped that slavery could be eliminated from the United States once a strong union was formed.
http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/classroom/index3.html
posted by Libertas @ 4/06/2006 04:13:00 PM
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4 Comments:
I don't see how the paragraphs you posted exposes the "3/5 myth". It seems apparent to me that counting 3/5 of a population means that the subject population was not considered whole persons.If not necessarily philosphically or morally 3/5, it was 3/5 nonetheless. Moreover, the paragraphs you cited do not dispute the fact that the 3/5 of all other persons language in the United States Constitution is in refrence to the slave population. The fact that 3/5 was for political purposes rather than moral or philosophical does not seem to make a difference. 3/5 does not equal 5/5.
Thanks you for the responce,
I think most people who study slavery can make the type of connections that you have made.
The problem I have is teaching history out of conext in order to present a slanted view of history.
If one presents the history of slavery with out its full context, it leaves a great deal unanswered questions.
What I wanted to do here was to simply emphasize the context.
Being rasied in an inner city school, I was taught the the 3/5 clause was a racist clause used to simply define blacks as subhuman.
I did not know the deep political background of this issue, and many black youths who I went to school with still do not.
That States with slaves wanted to count all of their slaves in the states population because that would yield more representatives in Congress is something that should be told.
That the harsh,slave owners wanted to count us as whole persons goes to show how moraly bankrupt these guys were.
In posting this I wanted the people to see how context defines the pretext and helps a young mind navigate this horrid period in our nations past.
The reason for my post was to deal
with the myth I and many young black children were taught, that is we should have been counted as whole person. While moraly this was agreat thing, politicaly it would have given the south more power over the North.
Also the person who came up with the 3/5 clause belived that blacks were whole person. It was proposed by delegate James Wilson.
James Wilson opposed slavery
"Slavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law... The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all."
-James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution and U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
I consider this as laying the foundation for banishing slavery out of this country; and though the period is more distant than I could wish, yet it will produce the same kind, gradual change, which was pursued in Pennsylvania.
-James Wilson
Man you believe them lyrics if you want to. It is plain to see that we were considered 3/5 human and 2/5 property. Yeah, you might refer to James Madison notes about resolving the issue on slavery when in fact, this was not the only time that deliberation came about. Quackers were advocates for abolishing slavery but their voices were not heard. This was another classic example of the dummies voicing their opinion. It was all economics, they use every bit of honest ignorance to imply that we were not fully human. I honestly hope that you post this comment. They called us Un-American, because remember to be American, you had to be Christian. To them we were descendants of Cham, the cursed son of Noah. That is how we ended up in Africa. That was their explanation and rationale besides the money, of placing us in slavery. Remember, the civil war soon followed. The misconception is that all white people are evil and racist. That is not the fact, you had throughout history, Quackers, Lincoln, Johnson, and Bobic. We could have screamed until we were blue in the face, but if they did not take the actions that they did, what would life be like? And anothet thing, at this meeting, I forget what this one guy name was, but he asked if we were going to count the niggars, we might as well count our cattle.
Mario from GA.
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