Quote:
Originally posted by Felix The Assassin:
"And I will tell you one thing. To this point, I have not yet seen the Iraqis make a compromise as bad as the one that in 1789 made my ancestors three-fifths of a man," said Miss Rice, who is black.
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*sigh*
(begin threadjack)
This is really a disturbing statement of ignorance on the part of Ms. Rice. Additionally, the 3/5 compromise is almost always misunderstood.
During the constitutional negotiations, the southern states wanted to count slaves at 100% of a person for the purposes of representation in the House of Reps, but they would still be slaves and not have the right to vote.
IIRC, the northern states would have prefered to abolish slavery altogether, but it was obvious that it would not be possible to do that and write a constitution for the US.
The 3/5 compromise was the done to not let the southern slave states count slaves as a full part of their population for representation, while getting their support for the Constitution.
It's really easy in hindsight to say that it was a "bad compromise". What would she have preferred
and would have still been attainable? The answer is that there were none. If she's bitching that slavery wasn't abolished when the Constitution was written, I can sympathize with the sentiment, but rationally abolition at that time was not possible. The southern states would have never signed the Constitution. The CSA might have been formed in the 1780's, instead of the 1860's. And who knows what would have happened in that scenario.
No, the very unfortunate truth is that there was no alternative at that time. It was either form a United States with all 13 colonies and slavery, or possibly have 2 seperate countries, one slave, one free.
And if you want to look further down the road from that scenario, what would the North and the South have done in the 20th century? How would they have looked at WW1 and WW2? Would either or both have been strong enough to matter in either or both WW1 and WW2? How would those WW's have turned out differently?
For that matter, would the north and the south gotten along? How would they have looked at each other when the explorers moved westward? Would the N and the S have ended up fighting a war(s) over ... any number of potential points of friction? Would there have been a single USA at some point in the 19th century?
The questions are endless. As unfortunate as the 3/5 compromise was on an emotional level, it is intellectually ignorant to speak of how bad it was without considering the likely alternatives.
(end threadjack)