Rachel Maddow on the 3/5's compromise.

[blahface]

Tonight Rachel Maddow brought up the 3/5's compromise in the context that it was racist and bad to only count slaves as 3/5's a person. The only problem I have with this compromise is that slaves shouldn't have been counted at all for representation. Counting slaves as a full person would have made it even more difficult to emancipate the slaves. I thought Maddow was smarter than this.

[StarshipTitanic]

Counting slaves as a full person would have made it even more difficult to emancipate the slaves.

Why?

[blahface]

Counting slaves as a full person would have made it even more difficult to emancipate the slaves.

Why?

It would have given more representation to pro-slavery states.

[Flagg]

Counting slaves as a full person would have made it even more difficult to emancipate the slaves.

Why?

It would have given more representation to pro-slavery states.

Yeah, namely more representatives and more electoral votes. It was an abhorrent principal, but it limited the already overrepresented south from being even more powerful legislatively.

[Bakustra]

Tonight Rachel Maddow brought up the 3/5's compromise in the context that it was racist and bad to only count slaves as 3/5's a person. The only problem I have with this compromise is that slaves shouldn't have been counted at all for representation. Counting slaves as a full person would have made it even more difficult to emancipate the slaves. I thought Maddow was smarter than this.

It was. It being a necessary political compromise has little to do with the moral problems with treating slaves as subhuman.

[Vympel]

Moved to history.

[blahface]

Tonight Rachel Maddow brought up the 3/5's compromise in the context that it was racist and bad to only count slaves as 3/5's a person. The only problem I have with this compromise is that slaves shouldn't have been counted at all for representation. Counting slaves as a full person would have made it even more difficult to emancipate the slaves. I thought Maddow was smarter than this.

It was. It being a necessary political compromise has little to do with the moral problems with treating slaves as subhuman.

So you think slaves should have been counted as a full person even though they weren't allowed to vote and their interests were not represented by the congressmen who were elected by their masters?

Now, I understand why it is racist to have slavery in the first place, but given that slavery was already a part of life, why would it be racist to put in place a measure that would weaken the power of the slave holders? Should they have just given slaveholders more representation so people wouldn't think they were being racist?

[fgalkin]

Women couldn't vote either- are you saying they shouldn't have counted women either?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Dominus Atheos]

For the purpose of determining representation; yeah, they should only count those able to vote.

[blahface]

Women couldn't vote either- are you saying they shouldn't have counted women either?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Actually, they should have had a condition that said women should only be counted as representation for states that allowed women to vote. If they had that condition, states would have allowed women to vote sooner.

Considering though that women are half the population uniformly across the states, whether or not they counted women didn't give any state an inherit advantage.

[Bakustra]

Tonight Rachel Maddow brought up the 3/5's compromise in the context that it was racist and bad to only count slaves as 3/5's a person. The only problem I have with this compromise is that slaves shouldn't have been counted at all for representation. Counting slaves as a full person would have made it even more difficult to emancipate the slaves. I thought Maddow was smarter than this.

It was. It being a necessary political compromise has little to do with the moral problems with treating slaves as subhuman.

So you think slaves should have been counted as a full person even though they weren't allowed to vote and their interests were not represented by the congressmen who were elected by their masters?

Now, I understand why it is racist to have slavery in the first place, but given that slavery was already a part of life, why would it be racist to put in place a measure that would weaken the power of the slave holders? Should they have just given slaveholders more representation so people wouldn't think they were being racist?

Okay, watch closely, I'm about to perform a magic trick. Nothing up my sleeves, nothing in my hat, here we go!

Slavery, as practiced in the USA, was racist.

Treating people as subhuman over minor physical characteristics is also racist.

Did I just blow your mind or what?!

Something can be bad but still be less bad than the alternative. You could easily argue that the 3/5ths compromise was such. You could argue that it wasn't, but counterfactuals are difficult to argue. But that does not change the fundamental injustice of the less awful option.

[Flagg]

Which would the less awful option be, though? The one that gave more power to the slaveholding states or the one that didn't give them that power? That's the point of this exercise, I think.

[blahface]

Okay, watch closely, I'm about to perform a magic trick. Nothing up my sleeves, nothing in my hat, here we go!

Slavery, as practiced in the USA, was racist.

Treating people as subhuman over minor physical characteristics is also racist.

Did I just blow your mind or what?!

Something can be bad but still be less bad than the alternative. You could easily argue that the 3/5ths compromise was such. You could argue that it wasn't, but counterfactuals are difficult to argue. But that does not change the fundamental injustice of the less awful option.

Nobody is arguing that slavery wasn't racist. The 3/5's compromise was about determining the amount of representation each state gets. It wasn't a statement that slaves were only 3/5's human. If it were, why would the slave states want each slave to count as a full person?

[Bakustra]

Which would the less awful option be, though? The one that gave more power to the slaveholding states or the one that didn't give them that power? That's the point of this exercise, I think.

That's what it seems to have evolved into, but that's separate from the question of whether it really was racist. It's also difficult to really say which would have been better, since a large part of abolitionist sympathy came from the idea that the South was imposing its ideals on the rest of the nation through things like the Fugitive Slave Act, which a stronger South would also have engendered, and much more quickly. However, it could well have caused the North to secede and much earlier, but without the abolitionist trend that led the North to demand an end to slavery by the end of the Civil War, and so the South could remain independent and slaveholding for longer, at least until the system fell apart. Then there's the real question of if the Constitution would have been ratified at all without that compromise- neither side quite had the numbers to force ratification. So it's not an easy answer.

Nobody is arguing that slavery wasn't racist. The 3/5's compromise was about determining the amount of representation each state gets. It wasn't a statement that slaves were only 3/5's human. If it were, why would the slave states want each slave to count as a full person?

Oh, it seems we were both wrong, Flagg. Man, the 3/5ths compromise explicitly states that slaves count for less than a person for apportionment, so therefore it is discriminatory and literally treats slaves as less than human. It turns out that people can have two different opinions that are both nevertheless discriminatory. Imagine that!

[Flagg]

Yeah... It was racist because the south still wouldn't have let blacks vote. So I dunno where this guy is coming from.

[Isolder74]

The original concept of the Population basis of the Legislature was that the States could only count the number of the free inhabitants. This was something proposed by something called the Virginia Plan. The States that were insisting on the counting of the slaves as part of the population were Maryland(Divided), Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The one fighting hardest for the inclusion of the slaves in the count of their populations was Rutladge from South Carolina. These states, not Maryland in this case, insisted that unless they were allowed to do this they would refuse to ratify the new Constitution. The 3/5 Compromise was come up with in order to move on to a much bigger problem with the subject of representation namely the makeup of the House and the Senate.

Later one of the most bitter fights was the one over under the new Constitution the importation of new slaves should stop. Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina led that fight. Rutladge being the chief leader again.

From what we saw later in the political nature of what became the deep south in the pre-Civil War years, we see massive unbalance in the political power of the large plantation holders even with the 3/5ths Compromise. Take a look at the maps of the county boundaries in many of the southern states and see the very small and odd make up of them. Even with the Compromise you had slave holder able to using it to more or less declare their plantation as a separate county and thus able to elect themselves and family as members of the State Legislators. Hmm....imagine that with them being able to count them as 1 person and how much worse it could have been.

[eion]

For the purpose of determining representation; yeah, they should only count those able to vote.

We still count plenty of people unable to vote in the current census (Children, felons, legal and illegal immigrants, etc.) with the idea that not only is the census about apportioning representation but also to allow the distribution of government services effectively.

While you might be able to somehow separate representation calculation from fund distribution that does add an additional layer of bureaucracy and may in fact lessen census response since it would provide the government with a list of people who can't vote, and who therefore might warrant closer study to determine why they cannot vote.