StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Greed. They wanted to get votes according to their population, bud didn't want to pay taxes for slaves or something. As a result, the 1/3 clause.

Naked greed for the most part, though occasionally someone would try to disguise it as something else. I don't have the references for this on hand, but I recall reading of arguments to the effect that slaveholders are responsible for caring for their slaves (yeah, sure) and should therefore get a greater say in the workings of government to enable them to do so on their property's behalf. Then there was couching said naked greed in terms of "we produce more for the economy using these slaves," which again goes back to naked greed; it's just a thin attempt to justify it.

No, I mean, they keep saying "slaves are not people" yet they want them as 1/3 of a person for voting purposes. Why are slaves worth 1/3 of a person, and a horse isn't? For that matter, their cotton gin should count as 20 people because it allows them to be more productive.

I guess what I'm trying to ask is, how did they justify having these two opposing viewpoints (slaves are property vs. slaves are 1/3 of a person)? And not have anyone call them out for "Well, what is it? Are slaves property, or people?"

Hawkwings wrote:No, I mean, they keep saying "slaves are not people" yet they want them as 1/3 of a person for voting purposes. Why are slaves worth 1/3 of a person, and a horse isn't? For that matter, their cotton gin should count as 20 people because it allows them to be more productive.

No one would ever argue that a horse or a cotton gin should be counted in a census, no matter how productive.

It's a matter of convenient doublethink. When it came time to set taxes in the Articles of Confederation, slaves were 'property' and so should not be counted for population-based tax apportionment. When it came time to set federal representation in the Constitution, slaves were 'people' and so should count for representation in the House. The fact that the 'people' and 'property' arguments were made at two different times, for two different purposes separates out the contradiction a bit, since this was an administrative issue and not an ethical one.

It's 3/5ths, not 1/3rd. Also, that clause of the Constitution is called the "3/5ths Compromise", it wasn't double think or trickery, but rather the result of competing interests. The Northern states wanted slaves to count for nought, because they were property, the Southern states wanted slaves to count as people as a way to counter their disadvantage in terms of (free) population. In order to get the Southern States to approve the Constitution, the Northern states agreed to compromise about half-way. Though even with that, the Northern states still managed to surpass the South in population-based legislative power eventually, which the South (rightfully) saw as a threat to the institution of slavery, and contributed to their decision to secede.

Isolder74 wrote:The truth of the matter of the Civil War was that the South succeeded because they didn't like the outcome of the Presidential Election and were whiny crybabies when they lost their pocket yes man in the White House. They had already lost the fight to force Kansas to be a slave state and had just lost their leverage in Congress because of it. .

Wasn't the election extremely slanted and divided into regionalism to the point that no southern electoral votes went to Lincoln, and he wasn't even on the popular ballot in many southern areas?

Warsie wrote:Wasn't the election extremely slanted and divided into regionalism to the point that no southern electoral votes went to Lincoln, and he wasn't even on the popular ballot in many areas?

What do you mean by slanted? It's true he wasn't in the ballot in nine Southern states, but despite that he still ran away with half a million votes more than Stephen Douglas, which is considerable given the total vote was 4.7 million.

Adrian Laguna wrote: What do you mean by slanted? It's true he wasn't in the ballot in nine Southern states, but despite that he still ran away with half a million votes more than Stephen Douglas, which is considerable given the total vote was 4.7 million.

slanted by region.