The Real and Racist Origins of the Second Amendment

[BainsBane]

42. hmm

late nineteenth century? Because much of the Southern angst over the Free Soil Movement's (Lincoln and the Republican Party) effort to stop the spread of slavery was their fear over a rapidly expanding slave population that might eventually overthrow them (like Haiti in 1791). The US was actually the only slave society with a self-reproducing enslaved population. All the other countries in the Americas depended on new captives from Africa to maintain their supply.

By the mid to late 18th century, blacks predominated in the Carolina low country, where slave owners tended to be absentee. How dominant the African and African-American population was depends on when and where you're talking about. Regions within the South varied. I'd have to check demographic estimates to know for sure. But certainly by the time of the Constitutional Convention, landed whites were far fewer in Southern states; hence the 3/5 clause.