Forgotten Constitutional History : The Three-Fifths Compromise

Back on 12 July 2018, City Weekly ran a story on the Orem Colonial Heritage Festival called, Breaking Chains, Building Links. It's an excellent piece, detailing efforts to raise the understanding of what life was like in Colonial America.

One part of the story brought front and center to me the lousy job we are doing of teaching children about American History.

"On Day 2 of the festival, actors playing James Madison and Patrick Henry workshopped their ideas in front of a large crowd, asking how to set up a system of checks and balances to dilute presidential power and how to preserve the rights of individual Americans. Turning their attention to who should be allowed to have a voice in the political process, faux Madison and Henry mentioned that each slave's voice should constitute three-fifths of a vote. A young white girl around 10 years old slid toward the edge of her seat and interjected loud enough that her voice carried above the crowd. 

"Slaves should count as a full vote," she said. "They are people, too." 

The point the girl raised is incontestable. It's appalling that someone should be counted less of a person based on the color of their skin, or any other reason.

But you must remember at this time slaves had no voice in representative government. The only people who were deriving any power from this were the states. And for the most part they weren't advocating abolition of slavery or improvements in the working conditions or any protections for slaves. Slaves had no voice in this government.

Counting them as a whole person would only have strengthened the power of the South which could have changed the history of this nation.

If you want to read more about it, see  The Three-Fifths Clause of the United States Constitution on blackpast.org.