• testfactor@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I mean, Article 1 Section 2? The Three Fifths Compromise seems like it’s pretty race based to me. I suppose it probably doesn’t explicitly outline that it’s based on race, just enslavement status of the person, but that’s splitting hairs a bit, no?

    • DaCookeyMonsta@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Three fifths compromise was an attempt to determine how to count the population in terms of representation. Free men of any race were counted as a whole person.

      Leads to the question, was it racist because a slave should be counted as whole person and thus give slave owning populations more power in government despite the fact that the slave would not have their representatives advocate for them? Or should they not be counted as a person at all and thus be reduced to property with no representatives accounting for their population? Is being in the middle any worse than the extremes?

      There is no morally right answer on the subject (because slavery itself makes any decision on the matter inherently immoral), however it needed to be addressed in terms of how representatives are distributed to the states.