Great Minds Taste A Like

I got into a debate with a man today over the United States Constitution concerning the 3/5ths clause.

I'm tired of people bringing up how the Constitution of the United States is a "Pro-Slavery" document because of the 3/5ths clause.


Look, the fact of the matter is when we look at where we are today as citizens, the condition of the country is always a reflection of We The People, and what we ourselves know about the Constitution.


There are so many things that are out there as far as Constitutional myths. American citizens by and large don’t know their Constitutional very well, and that’s very disturbing.


It’s worth reading every single year, it takes about 20 minutes to do, and that’s what will play a big part in turning the country around by knowing that document and using that document.


One example of this is the argument the “3/5ths Clause”.


Fredrick Douglas was actually very upset at our founders because he said “I’m not just 3/5ths of a human being. I am a full human being.”


This is an argument that is used even ‘today’, that Fredrick Douglas himself corrected.


After he escaped in 1838, he ended up in New York. And while there he gets discipled by a lot of anti-slavery folks. (Lysander Spooner, Garrett Smith, William Lloyd Garrison…etc.) and Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society hears him do his testimony and they said “Oh man, you gotta speak for us.”


Well, in the mean time they’re saying “You know, you need to overthrow the Constitution because the Constitution is a slavery document, the founders gave us slavery in the document, and there are all these clauses of slavery.” and he believed that.


But bless his heart, when the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society said “We wanna pay you to go on the road full-time.” he said “Okay, I gotta make sure I know this stuff.” So he sat down and read the Constitution for himself.


Not just what the guys had taught him, he read it himself and he read the documents surrounding it, the debates from both sides, etc.


Afterward he comes out with this epiphany and says “This is a great Anti-Slavery document. Ever clauses in it.” And people are like “Whoa, hang on a minute…time out. How can the 3/5ths clause be an anti-slavery clause?”


Real easy, because Douglas read the convention notes.


What happen was, you had all these anti-slavery founding fathers like Wilson, Sherry, Franklin, etc… all these anti-slavery guys, and 3 hard-core Southern states who were pro-slavery.


Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina. And so the Constitution says “For every 30,000 inhabitants you have, you get a member to the House of Representatives.”


And in South Carolina and Georgia there was more Blacks than there was Whites, and they’re slaves. And they said “Great, for every 30,000 slaves we’ve got we’ll get another member of Congress.”


But the guys up North said “No no no, we’re not doing that…if you want to count them, you free them. Every free person you have you can count them.”


And the those Southern states said “No no, we’re gonna count the slaves too or we’re not going to be apart of these United States.”


And so the debate goes back and forth, and what’s really funny is that the guys in the South said that “Blacks are property.” They didn’t think of them as people, but they wanted to count as people…and the fellows up North again said “No…every Black is equal to a White, we’re all created equal. You get 30,000 free blacks, and you can get another member in Congress.”


So the guys up North started to have a little fun with the guys down South, “You know, you guys say that Blacks are property, so here is what we’re gonna do up North. If you’re gonna count 30,000 pieces of property to get another member of Congress, we’re gonna count 30,000 Chairs, Horses and Cattle. We’ll count our property and for every 30,000 pieces of property we get another anti-slavery member to Congress.”


They went back and forth on this thing, and what they finally ended up with was the 3/5ths clause that says “Okay, we will count 3/5ths of the slave population…not individuals.” Which meant the South now had to have 50,000 inhabitants to get a pro-slavery rep to Congress.


The 3/5ths clause cut the slavery representation in Congress…in half.


And when Fredrick Douglas read that he said “The 3/5ths clause has nothing to do with ‘worth’. It has to do with the representation, and it makes it harder to get a pro-slavery representative in Congress. The Constitution is an Anti-Slavery document.”


So there are the facts...but don't take my word for it, please do your own research.


My first suggestion?


Actually reading the Constitution, that might help.


-Ulysses

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