Introduction
Last week, I posted an article about the basis of a rights-based society and made the claim that America was a rights-based society. Now, I did not think that should be controversial, but apparently it was. I received a response back citing the 3/5th’s compromise and implying, rather tongue in cheek, that we cannot be a rights-based society if we had that.
This is, unfortunately, part of a rather commonly pushed narrative in American public schools and most universities. The narrative runs along the lines that America is systemically racist, was founded on racism, and has racism built into the very documents that we Americans thought we should be so proud of.
If this were actually true, then it would be an issue to be addressed with the gravest of concerns. Unfortunately for the proponents of this argument, history does not prove it out. The 3/5th’s compromise is one of their biggest arguments for why we are built on racist foundations, and it is the focus of today’s article. The abysmal lack of understanding displayed by so many Americans, regardless of political affiliation, of our own history is beyond disturbing. This is one area we most certainly should not be ignorant of. Let us take a look.
What Was the 3/5th’s Compromise?
Now, I assume that most of us already know this, but I am rapidly discovering that I should not presume that my fellow Americans know anything of history at all. This is not, I would say, entirely their fault as the history they are being taught is very often not at all accurate or, at the least, is skewed so that all nuances that would make it appear not so evil are effectively removed. You cannot blame children for believing the adults they trust when the adults lie to them. Nor can you fully blame those same children for never debunking those lies when the lies are perpetuated throughout their lifetime by every respected authority they listen to.
So, as a result, we will start by explaining what the 3/5th’s compromise was so we are all on the same page here. The 3/5th’s compromise was a compromise on the issue of representation. It ended up in the Constitution, and was the result of a great deal of arguing and back and forth between Northern and Southern States on the issue of how the States ought to count people for representation.
The exact language that ended up in the Constitution is as follows: “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” (US Constitution).
That is the most straightforward way to explain the 3/5th’s compromise. It was a compromise revolving around taxation and representation that the North and South came to. Without it, we never would have become a union because most of the Southern states refused to join without it.
Historical Context for the 3/5th’s Compromise
Any historical document that we examine ought to be viewed in light of the time it comes from. The Constitution, while a remarkably enduring document that is still highly relevant today, is a historical document, and there are parts of it that can only truly be understood from a historical perspective. If we try to impose our 20th century understandings on it, we may end with wildly inaccurate conclusions. This is the case with the 3/5th’s compromise, as I intend to show.
So, what was going on around the time of the 3/5th’s compromise? Well, it was 1787, and our Founding Fathers had gathered at Philadelphia to discuss revisions to the Articles of Confederation. It quickly became apparent to them that the Articles were inherently flawed to the degree that they needed entirely new documents to govern the sphere of government moving forward. As such, they promptly moved toward discussing this. According to Secretary Madison’s notes on the convention, the topic of representation and how it should be apportioned to the States first came up on Monday, June 11, 1787.
When this discussion came up, the proposition was that suffrage should only be granted to free citizens, and that, furthermore, we should only be counting free, tax-paying citizens in the count for representation. This seems logical, to some degree, but Southern delegates opposed it. They wanted representation to continue to be on the basis of property, not population, in areas where your representatives would be elected based on some differences between States. In other words, if the States were to gain an even number of representatives in the Senate but would be given representatives in the House based upon some count, they wanted property to be that count, not population.
This, of course, led to heated discussion. On the first day of discussion regarding this, Madison’s notes state that Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts “thought property not the rule of representation. Why then shd. the blacks, who were property in the South, be in the rule of representation more than the Cattle & horses of the North” (Madison Debates, June 11). The discussion was postponed for another date, but this set the tenure for the discussions in the days to follow.
The main argument from the North was this: if the slaves are property, then they cannot be treated as a portion of your population for representation anymore than you would allow us to count our horses and cattle. This was not a statement from the North that the slaves were cattle! They were simply pointing out the hypocrisy of the South’s insistence on treating them as non-humans on the count of voting and all other rights but treating them as human if representation by population would be the rule.
The South’s argument was that they wanted full population count with the slaves counted as full citizens or people for the purposes of representation. They understood that the more slaves they had, the more power they would hold in the government. And they were not the only ones who understood this.
The Northern delegates, including individuals such as Alexander Hamilton, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin, understood that if they allowed the South to continue the charade of counting humans as humans when convenient and as property when not, they would be in essence encouraging the slave trade! After all, if the South could outweigh the North in the House by simply importing more slaves, why would they not do so? Because of this, the North’s delegates did not wish to count the slaves as part of the population for the purposes of representation at all.
The Problem
As I already hinted earlier, this created a problem for the fledgling country. The South utterly refused to join the new union if their slave population was not counted at all. As the discussions and debate over the issue raged on, two delegates–James Wilson of Pennsylvania and seconded by Charles Pickney of South Carolina–suggested the 3/5th’s compromise. At first, no one liked the ratio. The North was split over whether to accept it or to insist on no representation for the slave population to curb Southern power. The South wanted a half compromise, which would have counted the slaves as half a person in respects to representation.
After intense debate and arguing, Madison once again put forward the 3/5th’s compromise as the only viable option that could be used for compromise at that point. Finally, the delegates all agreed to this: the South because they realized it was the best they could get to increase their power in the new government and the North because it was the only way they could curb Southern power and the slave trade while ensuring the union was formed.
What Did the Solution Achieve?
Note that this solution was in fact a good thing. So was creating the Union. If we hadn’t done so, we would have had one free country and one slave-holding country right next to each other vying for power, and eventually, it would likely have destroyed both. Either that or we would have had one winning out over another, leaving the conquered colonies ripe with strife and the possibility for continual revolts. The 3/5th’s compromise went a long way toward making sure that slavery did not continue into modern day as it had been back in 1787. It established, due to the debates revolving around it, in everyone’s minds that the institution of slavery was an ugly thing.
But What About Slavery in the Constitution?
This is a common argument I’ve seen used by those who want to tell us that America is inherently evil with no redeeming qualities whatever. Unfortunately for them, it is unsupported. Slavery was never mentioned in the Constitution by name.
However, here we should note that while the delegates on the Southern side and the Northern side avoided using the word slavery in the Constitution anywhere, the issue is discussed in a few points, as is the case in the 3/5th’s clause. Nevertheless, we are creating intentional misunderstanding if we attempt to say that the document uses the word or even discusses it in a way meant to uphold it. Whether we like it or not, they never actually used the words “slave” or “slavery”.
Ashamed of Slavery
Why is it that they never used the words “slave” or “slavery”? If they were as racist as many modern professors and writers claim they were, we could assume that these highly educated men were only a reflection of the rest of the population. It would even be possible that the general population might perhaps be worse than their leaders, but at least they were no better. If that were true, then why not simply use the words that they instead chose to avoid in favor of descriptions of slavery? Surely no one in the population–on the whole–would have objected.
The reasons may be found in the documents written and circulated at the time. Based on the discussions and what various Founding Fathers said, the conclusion we can draw best would be that they recognized it as an evil, even in the cases where some of them supported it, and they were ashamed of it. Even those Southern delegates who held to it so firmly did not seem to believe it was good. Instead, they thought it a necessary evil and resented the North’s suggestion that it be removed because they viewed it as so integral to supporting the cotton industry.
Decrying Slavery in the Founding Documents
Many of the country’s Founding Fathers had long held slavery as one of the worst evils committed against humanity in history. The Founding documents reflect this, though in the case of the Declaration of Independence, there is no mention of the issue. This is because it was removed from the first draft Jefferson wrote.
In the first drafts of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson penned these words, “He [King George] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.”
He continued on to criticize England for Lord Dunmore’s proclamation that encouraged slaves to join the British side (which at the time still supported slavery) to gain their freedom in exchange for fighting for Britain. Jefferson says that King George was “exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”
Due to the deep division between the representatives and the colonies on the issue of slavery, the delegation that edited and revised Jefferson’s initial draft of the Declaration of Independence removed that segment. The exact reason may never be known, but politics was certainly involved. Jefferson himself blamed South Carolina and Georgia for the removal of the clause against slavery and Britain’s major role in exporting it to the colonies and perpetrating it on a grand scale around the world.
So we can see that many of the Founding Fathers were staunchly against slavery. While it can certainly be argued that in some cases, they were not fully following the ideals they proposed, they were nonetheless not all attempting to enshrine slavery nor to preserve it. On the whole, the only delegates who were staunchly for preserving the slave trade entirely unmitigated were Southern delegates, the strongest supporters of which were South Carolina and Georgia.
What the 3/5th’s Compromise Did Not Do
Many times, I have heard people say that the 3/5th’s compromise was making it appear as if slaves were worth less than a free, white citizen or that they were not truly human at all. This is patently wrong. The reason lies both in the background we have already provided historically and in the clause that came out of it.
I have already provided you with the historical context. However, let us now go back to the Constitution and the infamous 3/5th’s clause that people trip over so frequently.
Recall what it says: “”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” (US Constitution).
Notice the first part of the clause. It establishes what the basis for counting these individuals is in the first place. The Constitution says, “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers…”
Everything after that is in context of that point. There was no statement in here that said it was to help us decide how much of a person a slave was nor that it was to help us determine once and for all what their worth was compared to a white person. If you are still arguing with me on your end of the computer or phone, please re-read the clause! The facts are the facts. The Constitution does not say that, nor does the wording support that interpretation.
Secondly, re-read the final section of the clause. It says, “three-fifths of all other Persons.” This is clearly recognizing the slaves as people. It was saying, we recognize them as people, but for the purposes of counting them for representation and taxation, we will only allow you to count them as three-fifths. Why? Because they were not going to be allowed to vote or have any other rights as the Southern states refused to grant them those rights. As such, they would be represented but would not truly be given any say in anything that happened. Their masters would be the ones whose interests would be supported. If you read through Madison’s notes on the Constitutional convention, you can actually see that several Northern delegates made exactly this point, and they were right to make it.
So, a fair reading of the clause gives us the following conclusions:
- It was intended to curb the power of the slave-holding states.
- It recognized the slaves as persons.
- It did not say that the slaves were literally 3/5th’s of a person.
- It was not making a value statement.
- It only applied to how representation and taxation would be handled.
Conclusion
The 3/5th’s clause in the Constitution and the corresponding compromise that led to it are some of the most misunderstood portions of American history. Those seeking to tear down the legacy of liberty, equality, and pursuit of happiness that was–at the time first proposed and begun–uniquely America use it and twist it to suit their narrative.
It is time to stop believing the lies and the myths. To recap what lies and myths we have debunked in this article:
- The 3/5th’s clause was intended to promote slavery. Actually, it was intended to curb the power of the Southern states and to curb the incentive to continue the slave trade as a basis for political power.
- The 3/5th’s clause treated black individuals as less than human. In reality, it was not making a value judgment at all. The phrasing makes it clear that the 3/5th’s situation was only for the purpose of representation and taxation. In fact, it clearly states that they are persons.
- The South wanted this clause because it promoted their racist views. Wrong. The South wanted full representation. They strongly opposed counting based on population at all, but if that had to be the way of things, they wanted to ensure their slaves were treated fully as people in this one area while in all others they were degraded to property like cattle. In fact, it was the North that was strongly for either the 3/5th’s compromise or no counting of slaves at all, not the South.
- The 3/5th’s clause is racist. Again, wrong. This clause is not the basis for any argument for racism on the part of those staunchly for it, nor is it the basis for any argument that the Constitution was a racist document. This is because, once again, the clause was never intended to be a value judgment in any area of life.
So we see that the arguments attempting to use the 3/5th’s argument to support an idea that the United States is inherently evil and racist are entirely unfounded on these grounds. This clause and the corresponding compromise are not proof of racism. They are proof of an attempt to curb the slavery that grew out of it.
Resources
Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention – June 11th entries
Madison’s Notes on the Constitutional Convention (Full List of Entries)
Representatives and States present at the Convention
Basic information on the 3/5th’s Compromise
Why Thomas Jefferson’s Anti-Slavery Passage Was Removed from the Declaration of Independence from History.com
Understanding the 3/5th’s Compromise from theusconstitution.org
Why the 3/5th’s Compromise was Anti-Slavery from Prager University
The Truth about the 3/5th’s Compromise from Casual Historian (Not a source used in this article, but I found that the historian gave much of the same information in a video format, so if you prefer that to reading, this might be for you.)
