byJeff Davidson, Townhall:
In listening to Joe Biden address the nation, if you didn’t know better, and especially if you’ve been under indoctrination by the Left since birth, you’d think the country was in great shape. My only nephew, unfortunately, has been brainwashed by years of less-than-honest educators and hence is easy prey for Leftist manipulators.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
When it comes to U.S. history, he knows precious little about the U.S. Constitution and proclaims that he “doesn’t care much about the Constitution,” which is designed to protect his rights. He claims it is an old document and that some parts of the Constitution might be good and “some parts are awful.”
In a vigorous email exchange, when I asked him to cite an ‘awful part,’ he took a long time to reply. Then he referred to slaves in the South being counted as 3/5th in voting, an issue that many people routinely misunderstand.
Two Centuries of Getting it Wrong
In yesteryear, as today, states with greater populations were allotted greater numbers in the U.S. House of Representatives. Southern states wanted all slaves to be counted, but still to be treated as slaves, and not allowed to vote. Combining resident white voters and resident slave non-voters would give pro-slave states more representatives in Congress and thus more power to perpetuate slavery.
Anything that the North could do to reduce the head count of slaves diminished the power of pro-slavery. Ergo, the compromise to reduce the slave headcount to 3/5th was an anti-slavery move. The measure was not introduced to degrade the slaves as if they were 3/5th human. They were already degraded; they were slaves, for crying out loud!
As Glenn Beck describes this situation in his book, Arguing with Idiots, northern states regarded the compromise as the only way to eventually end slavery. To be clear: 3/5ths of a person was not the value of a slave’s life. It was the value counted in the U.S. Census.
