you wont believe this

[qazplm]

but I actually am in a discussion on another board, where a couple of freeper types are actually trying to argue that the 3/5ths compromise was anti slavery, and done with the intent of helping stop slavery.

their argument basically, I kid you not, boils down to, well, it could have been worse. One guy purports to be a lawyer, and since I am a lawyer as well, he tries the standard putdowns, and also quotes, as his experts. Walter Williams. lol

I am about to tear my hair out over here.

[Sweetpea]

1. Didn't Bush go to Law School too or was his major business?

[Fenris]

2. History bachelors from Yale; MBA from Harvard. n/t

[Joy Anne]

7. Bush's grad school

He applied to the University of Texas Law School but wasn't admitted. Apparently he flunked his LSATs.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. I've heard this. If true, it's sad that U freaking T is less beholden to

family connections and money/fame than my alma mater...

[Eloriel]

3. Yeah, it could've been worse

The Plantation Owners could've gotten even less power.

Sheesh.

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. I suggest you log off that one

You are wasting your time.

[Fenris]

5. Something of a "glass half full" type of argument.

Optimistic reassessments of historical events are outright foolish. Counting a slave as 3/5 of a human was done with both the intent of ending slavery and the intent of preserving it. That's why it is referred to as the 3/5 Compromise.

What is clear is that until the 1860s (and probably beyond) blacks were given a status less than whites - 3/5 of a human being. And that can never be called a positive.

[qazplm]

8. Here is my argument

the Articles of Confederation discussed this, but only from the standpoint of whether or not to tax slaves as people, the North wanted the money, the South obviously didnt want it, but the idea of counting them for REPRESENTATION wasnt a factor until the constitutional debate.

At that point it was:

North:
we want the taxes
we dont want you to have the additional power you'd get from more representatoin

South:
We dont wanna pay taxes
We want the representation

The compromise was, ok, the South will pay 3/5ths of taxes, but they will also get 3/5ths the power/representation.

There is no evidence that antislavery concerns were anything more than at best an ancilliary consideration by a handful of people.

[Fenris]

9. Precisely. It was a ploy by the North to reap additional revenue.

And a ploy by the South to have a larger bloc in Congress.

You win the argument, my friend, but I would not imagine that your sparring partner will be convinced. Good luck to you.

[qazplm]

11. yeah

and this guy has thrown out all the insults, I am dishonest, poor lawyer, etc.

It's laughable really but I just wasted the last two hours when I could have been playing CIV III.

And all because the two of us HAPPEN to be Purdue sports fans and thus end up on a general discussion board on a Purdue sports page. lol

The ONLY smart thing about him.

I just cant believe the guy is a lawyer.

[RoyGBiv]

14. The Compromise

As you're probably aware the federal ratio, as it came to be known, was more or less originally a result of debates about how to distribute tax burdens. There was one end that wanted taxes apportioned according to the total population of "free white persons" and the other that wanted the inclusion of "the number of Inhabitants, of all ages, including negroes and mulattoes." That language comes from the 2nd Continental Congress.

<The agreement upon a three-fifths ratio reflects> a double judgment, together with a qualification insisted upon by southerners and reluctantly acquiesced by northerners, namely: that taxation should be proportionate to wealth, that population was the best available index of wealth, and that slaves, because they were less productive than free persons, ought to be counted only fractionally as indicators of wealth. The fraction chosen, as Madison explained to a fellow Virginian, was simply 'a compromise between the wide opinions & demands of the Southern & other States'" (On Edit: This is from Don Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic.)

When the ratio was brought into public debate again, it was intended to solve a debate over representation.

Where people like Williams go wrong is that they fail to consider the breadth of its meaning and all the reasons it came to be used. He takes a half-truth, namely that counting a slave as less than a person was essentially a position that ran counter the slave interests who were wanting expanded representation based on their slave population, and considers it the full truth, ignoring the economic benefit of counting slaves as less than a whole person for matters of taxation.

[alittlelark]

6. you're a lawyer!

wow.....nuff said. tearr out your hair elsewhere.

[leftistagitator]

10. Giving extra representation to slave-owners = anti-slavery?

Wow, I mean wow. I'm sure his parents must be proud.

[RoyGBiv]

12. Walter Williams ...

That individual is a blight on the scholarly world. He and Thomas DiLorenzo have generated more misunderstanding about issues like these than anyone since John C Calhoun.

Ask them to offer an analysis of what Don Fehrenbacher and Jack Rakove have to say about the compromise. Then just move on.