2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Hillary's historian refutes Sanders claim that this country is "created on racist principles". [View all]jonno99
(2,620 posts)(from Kev's above link)
"Let us grant, for the sake of the argument, that the first of these provisions, referring to the basis of representation and taxation, does refer to slaves. We are not compelled to make that admission, for it might fairly apply to aliens persons living in the country, but not naturalized.
But giving the provisions the very worse construction, what does it amount to? I answer It is a downright disability laid upon the slaveholding States; one which deprives those States of two-fifths of their natural basis of representation. A black man in a free State is worth just two-fifths more than a black man in a slave State, as a basis of political power under the Constitution.
Therefore, instead of encouraging slavery, the Constitution encourages freedom by giving an increase of two-fifths of political power to free over slave States.
So much for the three-fifths clause; taking it at is worst, it still leans to freedom, not slavery; for, be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a coloured man to vote."
As recently quoted at DU: "...attempting to judge the past by the present, ...is always a preposterous thing to do"