I was surprised to see you seemingly repeat the myth that the 3/5 clause means that anyone is just 3/5 of a person. In the text, it is only about how many seats a state gets in Congress, and it meant that slave states got less than they would have with 5/5. (In the 14th Amendment, the number is changed to 0/5 to pressure ex-slave-states …
I was surprised to see you seemingly repeat the myth that the 3/5 clause means that anyone is just 3/5 of a person. In the text, it is only about how many seats a state gets in Congress, and it meant that slave states got less than they would have with 5/5. (In the 14th Amendment, the number is changed to 0/5 to pressure ex-slave-states to grant black suffrage.)
No reference is made to race, only to status of free or other, so states got as much representation for free blacks as for anyone else.
Yeah, there’s a long conversation with Adam about this somewhere in the comments here. I think we hashed it out pretty well. The point is, the question of representation was only an issue because of the fact that black people weren’t allowed to vote. It was a solution designed to protect that particular outcome.
Lastly, I moved from California to Maryland years ago. Both have two Senate seats, but CA has seven times as many people. So did I become 7 times as much of a person when I moved to MD? And did I become a non-person when I lived in DC for a few years?
I was surprised to see you seemingly repeat the myth that the 3/5 clause means that anyone is just 3/5 of a person. In the text, it is only about how many seats a state gets in Congress, and it meant that slave states got less than they would have with 5/5. (In the 14th Amendment, the number is changed to 0/5 to pressure ex-slave-states to grant black suffrage.)
No reference is made to race, only to status of free or other, so states got as much representation for free blacks as for anyone else.
Yeah, there’s a long conversation with Adam about this somewhere in the comments here. I think we hashed it out pretty well. The point is, the question of representation was only an issue because of the fact that black people weren’t allowed to vote. It was a solution designed to protect that particular outcome.
Lastly, I moved from California to Maryland years ago. Both have two Senate seats, but CA has seven times as many people. So did I become 7 times as much of a person when I moved to MD? And did I become a non-person when I lived in DC for a few years?
😅 You’re ignoring a great deal of context here John.