Founding Fathers on Slavery
- Thread starter The Thriller
- Start date
Well, if I'm correct, which I'm almost positive that I am, the slave owners actually cast the vote for the slaves, so if they had 5 slaves, they actually got 4 votes in an election. 1 for themselves, and 3 representing the slaves.
If the slaves had actually been treated as humans, they would have had actual votes for themselves and ended slavery immediately.
So no, the decendents of slaves don't need to reexamine their views on the 3/5's vote. The ends don't justify the means.
This guy comes from the same line of thinkers that have produced the "slaves should be happy they got a free ticket to America, because look how good African Americans have it now" argument.
Morons, all of em.
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Clearly somebody didn't pay attention in history class... the idea was that southern states wouldn't receive House of Representatives representation based on the total "slave and free" population in a state, which would give them an overwhelming majority due to the new rules made at the Constitutional convention, so in reality the south would have been all for each slave being worth a whole vote, rather than 3/5ths. The north felt that the slave population shouldn't be counted in voting representation, because the slaves couldn't vote and they had no representation. The compromise was agreed to by the North, because if the slave populous was added to the free populous in the South, there would have been an overwhelming majority for the South in the HoR, and had that happened the **** would have hit the fan(or we wouldn't be a country anymore). So this wasn't really a smear compromise based on telling slaves they aren't worth anything...
This was blanket racist, but actually protected the North and to a degree the slaves... correct me if I'm wrong Kicky.
This is what I was taught in AP high school history, not a personal vendetta against any race (exp: Simple Heel is a racist because he agreed with the 3/5th compromise). It makes sense if you know basic United States Government.
I don't believe slave votes were tallied, but I'm not sure.
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it had nothing to do with voting, it had to do with counting the population to determine how many representatives those states should have - - you know, how many seats in the House of Representatives.
Slaves couldn't vote, women couldn't vote, nobody under the age of 21 could vote - but they were still counted in determining the population, though slaves only counted as 3/5 of a person, in other words 5 slaves counted the same as 3 non-slaves
not really, but it was beneficial for those states that allowed slavery because it gave them a larger number of representatives than they would have had if the slaves weren't counted at all
Because the north was so much more populous, it would have had a clear majority if the slaves had not counted at all - - who knows how things might have been different if that had been the case.
Ya I edited that part before I saw this, nothing done before 1861 was really that beneficial for the slave.
Literally the exact same problem, just remove having the slave owner himself vote for the slaves, and give the slave state representative the vote. If the slaves had actually had a vote, these guys who misrepresented the population wouldn't have had the opportunity to do so.
All it did was empower slave owners, and legalize the dehumanization of an entire race.
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Well, they would have been killed because they were viewed as less than human, and it's okay to kill something that isn't human. If they had been viewed as humans, they wouldn't have been brought over and enslaved, they wouldn't have been ruthlessly murdered in the first place. The founding fathers didn't view these people as humans which is why there was slavery to being with.
Really, any way you shave it it comes out the same, the racism from our nations creators is inexcusable, regardless of the good things they as far as building a nation.
All this writer is trying to do find a way to ignore the fact that there is a double narrative in this story. The fact that our founding fathers were horrendous in some of their actions doesn't fit in with his belief of the American story, so he tries to ignore the awful things they did.
Really, any way you shave it it comes out the same, the racism from our nations creators is inexcusable, regardless of the good things they as far as building a nation.
All this writer is trying to do find a way to ignore the fact that there is a double narrative in this story. The fact that our founding fathers were horrendous in some of their actions doesn't fit in with his belief of the American story, so he tries to ignore the awful things they did.
That part got a good chuckle out of me.