Why the 3/5ths Compromise Was Anti-Slavery | 5 Minute Video
Is racism enshrined in the United States Constitution? How could the same Founding Fathers who endorsed the idea that all men are created equal also endorse the idea that some men are not? The answer provided in this video by, Carol Swain, former professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University, may surprise you.
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Script:
One of the most misunderstood clauses in the United States Constitution is found in Article 1, Section 2:
“Representatives… shall be apportioned among the… States… by adding to the whole Number of free Persons… three fifths of all other Persons.”
Known as “the three-fifths compromise,” it raises an obvious question: How could the Founding Fathers who endorsed the idea that all men are created equal also endorse the idea that some men aren’t?
In 2013, James Wagner, President of Emory University, answered the question this way: the three-fifths compromise was an example of difficult, but necessary, political bargaining. Without it, Wagner argued, the northern and southern states would never have agreed to form a single union. No three-fifths compromise; no United States of America.
Many people, including 31 members of his own faculty, vehemently disagreed. Wagner, the faculty members suggested, was excusing the inexcusable. They signed an open letter stating that the three fifths compromise was “an insult to the descendants” of slaves, and an example of “racial denigration.”
So, who’s right?
Let’s look at the text again.
“Representatives… shall be apportioned among the… States… by adding to the whole Number of free Persons… three fifths of all other Persons.”
Note that the Constitution does not say that a slave is not a person; it explicitly says that they are “persons.” And it also does not say that a slave is three-fifths of a person, as many today mistakenly believe. The “three-fifths” description had nothing to do with the human worth of an individual slave, but everything to do with how many representatives each state would have in the U.S. Congress. For that purpose, states could only claim three-fifths of their slave population.
The three-fifths compromise was devised by those who opposed slavery, not by those who were for slavery. Or, to put it another way, it wasn’t the racists of the South who wanted to count slave populations less than white populations – it was the abolitionists of the North.
The framers of the Constitution were deeply divided on the issue of slavery. The free states of the North wanted to abolish it. The slave states of the South wanted to expand it. You might say that the southern slave states wanted to have it both ways: They wanted to count their slaves for the purpose of representation, but they didn’t want to give any representation to their slaves.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/why-35ths-compromise-was-anti-slavery
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There is no dignity being an unpaid 24 hour laborer…they were not considered human or equal if they only counted 60% of them
Woah, that is such a good point
The 3/5ths compromise was not anti-slavery. It's right there in the name, it was a *compromise between slaveholding and free states (or states on their way to being free). It's not anti-slavery or pro-slavery either.
An excellent book to understand the Constitution's compromises on slavery is the book No Property in Man by Sean Wilentz. It is highly significant that the Constitution only implicitly refers to slaves and always as persons. Contrary to what many claimed around the time of the Civil War that "slavery was national, freedom local" (which the terrible Dredd Scott decision caused) freedom was national and slavery was local. There was no national recognition of slavery at all – If a foreigner had no idea about what actually occurred in the U.S., he could have read the Constitution and not known the U.S. practiced slavery. The route was left open for the abolition of slavery if the nation was in the right hands but sadly the invention of the cotton gin made slavery far more profitable and therefore tenaciously held to by the South. Hence we got a civil war and the South finally got their national recognition of "African slavery" in the CSA's Constitution.
It was slightly more anti-slavery than allowing the slave states to count every slave. Didn’t go far enough though, and was still a win for the slavers. It allowed Southern plantation owners to dominate the federal government until the Civil War
The fact that they compromised with slavery is in itself abhorrent.
The 3/5ths compromise was a truly genius piece of abolitionist maneuvering that implanted a slavery self-destruct device into the constitution – since they could not abolish slavery outright from the beginning, the 3/5ths compromise created a structure where slave states would slowly become less politically, economically, and industrially powerful to the point where they would not be able to sustain slavery. Having lost the power to sustain slavery politically due to the compromise, the slave states were left to do it militarily, and with far less economic and industrial power they could not sustain through military measures. Without the 3/5ths compromise we would not have had the civil war as early as we did and it have ended slavery as early as we did – we would probably have ended it after Brasil around 1890. If the 3/5ths was racist then ask this logic test – knowing the outcome today would the slave holding states have agreed to the compromise? No, they would understand that it was a poison pill that reduced their political power and would do so even further in the future.
I would still say that compromising with slaver owners is never pro-slavery. Whether it was necessary is irrelevant to that.
They had to make the Compromise b/c enslaved Africans were not seen as humans by everyone. Some viewed them as subhuman. Every enslaved person was not counted as a "man". For every 5, only 3 were counted. The reasoning may have been to help but their humanness was still diminished in the process.
I actually get it. The abolitionist were right.
What a weird argument. Obviously, the compromise was pro-slavery because the South got extra representation even though no slaves could vote. People who can't vote shouldn't be counted at all.
This is the dumbest video on the internet
This is one of the most misunderstood things in American history..so easy for pro slavery and even by people now to spin it
retard >:(
Affirming the humanity of blacks would be not having slavery at all, ensuring their right to vote as citizens, and ensuring representation of blacks in Congress. That's the 5/5ths compromise. What was wrong in the 1700s is still wrong in 2023.
They hired a black woman to sanitize the racism
I guess my history teachers are wrong on this. They say that the Constitution of the US had many flaws, including the protection of the institution of slavery thanks to the 3/5ths Compromise. I read it and it didn't make sense. Found your video and I still think they're wrong. What was the solution if not the 3/5ths compromise? Giving more representation to slave states? Or giving them no representation at all? It's called a compromise for a reason.
I once fantasized about a time traveler talking key members of the Constitutional Convention into changing their vote so the U.S. would abolish slavery about 75 years earlier. Then I realized that even if they did vote that way, it wouldn't resolve the issue overnight. In all likelihood, the slave states would secede right away. And given the nearly equal populations, the Confederacy might just win any subsequent civil war.
I have come to expect "selectively shaded history" from Prager U. In Federalist 54, Madison lays out the boundaries of the discussion. Which were apparently undisputed at the time. He points out that the 3/5 compromise was NOT necessary because Southerners were illegitimately asking for disproportionately high representation while suppressing black votes. In fact, it was necessary because the NORTHERNERS wanted to exclude the blacks as persons. At the time, taxation was based on property values (i.e. taxation of wealth). Therefore, counting blacks as "property" as was the Northern proposal would mean that Southerners paid higher taxes because they would be taxed for their slaves. Conversely, representation was to be based on "Persons".
The Southern argument against the 3/5 Compromise was NOT about them wanting to "keep the black man down". It was about a bunch of elitist, racist, Northern businessmen wanting to steal from Southerners by confiscatory taxation. And the Southerners not wanting to be robbed. It was about "No taxation without representation."
Can we agree that not all Northerners were racist? Sure. But stop the BS of claiming that the South was all a bunch of ignorant Klansmen trying to keep the black man down. Just like today, they were people like Oliver Anthony who just want a bunch of elitist assholes to leave them alone. The record of the North was and still is FAR worse than that of the South. And Lincoln did more to dismantle the Constitution than any other person in US history.
Tyranny always comes from rich racist assholes trying to steal from everyone else.
I just wish that people will be this incredibly dumb as to think that this is a good video, so everyone that thinks that can be shown as traitors
This should be the top result when searching the 3/5 compromise. Too many people teach and believe it wrong.
Are you kidding me?
The Southerners wanted to count all slaves to artificially increase their represantation in congress, despite the fact they aren't representing anyone, because BLACK PEOPLE WEREN'T CITIZENS
This is stupid
Put simply: Populous states have more seats in Congress because they represent more people. The argument against counting slaves was not that slaves aren't people, but that the governments of those states don't represent the people they enslaved.
This is a ridiculous spin on an inhumane institution in an attempt to make it more palatable for some people. This weak argument disregards the glaring distinction between “free people” and “other people” and equivocates by saying the text identifies both groups as people. It goes further by stating that the framers sought to count 3/5 of the population, inherently meaning 3/5 of a person -OR-the other 2/5 don’t count somehow. Reader’s preference I assume. It’s okay to identify this piece of policy as one way to save the Union and also racist. Necessary? No. Evil? Yes.
“Nawthun”
God bless I love you all brothers and sisters ❤
3/5 compromise did not exist to affirm humanity of African Americans, it made the distinction that there are non-free people. It was necessary at the time to create the union sure, but it is not Anti-slavery, because it’s aim was to benefit pro-slavers
Yall must be on something
So citizens are still slave good job