If we had Athenian democracy then everyone would have their own vote. That's 100% representation with everyone representing themselves. Everything else is less then 100% representation. Got it?
This is true, but at the end of the day there is still 100% of the representation to be divided up, somehow.
The great travesty here is that slave-holding states were allocated greater representation on behalf of slaves, to whom they accorded almost no rights. It's as though a child molester was allowed to count his victims as dependents. I'm very fond of my country and this may well have been a necessary compromise to form it, but it remains an evil thing.
I was speaking of 100% of the aggregate people's representation in D.C., whatever that representation is. I agree it's not 100% representation with respect to each individual having a vote on every subject, but it's still a valid and useful concept, and the 3/5 compromise altered the balance between the states compared to either apportionment by total population or to apportionment by total voting population. In much the same way, Connecticut is less that 1% of America, but 100% of America and 100% of Connecticut are both still useful and accurate concepts.If we had Athenian democracy then everyone would have their own vote. That's 100% representation with everyone representing themselves. Everything else is less then 100% representation. Got it?
I was speaking of 100% of the aggregate people's representation in D.C., whatever that representation is. I agree it's not 100% representation with respect to each individual having a vote on every subject, but it's still a valid and useful concept, and the 3/5 compromise altered the balance between the states compared to either apportionment by total population or to apportionment by total voting population. In much the same way, Connecticut is less that 1% of America, but 100% of America and 100% of Connecticut are both still useful and accurate concepts.
You still don't get it. The people in D.C. are the ones who decide just how many people there are in D.C. Hence, the 3/5 compromise changed the number of people in D.C. who could represent Southern States in D.C. Show me a pie that grows larger when you slice it up and I'll find you a Hollywood agent.
I think I understand what you are trying to say, yet when this 3/5 thingie was made, there was no Washington, D.C.
Southerners didn't believe blacks were equals, they believed they were inferior and it was racism pure and simple. So while we understand that you want to clarify that the 3/5th Compromise didn't come to exist directly because Southern slave owners wanted blacks to be 3/5ths a person out of principle, it's still a well known fact of history Southerners by and large believed blacks were inferior humans. So it's a distinction without a difference that you are trying to peddle as clever. We get what you're trying to do, it makes some sense on the surface but isn't particularly worth all that much discussion.
News flash: Most Americans and most Europeans of that time believed that blacks were inferior human beings. In fact they didn't limit it to blacks, they thought slavs, "celestials", Indians dot or feather, or pretty much anyone they encountered that had not achieved the technological level of Europe/America were inferior people. It was not limited to southerners in the US. You really need to read up on the origins of slavery in the Western Hemisphere, it was not started by nor ubiquitous to English North America nor was the United States the only or last nation with slavery in the Western Hemisphere.
Good points, all. If you read the history of the Far East you will find out that they, Chinese and Japanese, thought themselves superior to all other humans they encountered. Well, till WWII that is. But, still, in their heart of hearts they still think/know they are superior. That is especially true of the Japaneses. Chinese too, but they are not as blatant about it.
just because the northerners were also scum bags doesn't mean that the south is was good
There was no pie idiot.
Wow, for dozens of posts I thought you were better than that, that we were having a civil discussion. I was wrong. I'll reply and then you are on ignore.
There was a pie. It was a pie of power.
I don't care if it's dividing up who gets how many votes on the local PTA, or the book reading club, or the nation you are creating, or among AT moderators.
It's a pie of power being divided up about who gets how much say on policy.
That is a pie. The fact you don't see this - well, you were told, and I don't care if you get it or not, I'm done trying to help you.
The very fact they spent so much effort on setting up who got how much says that there was a pie of power they were dividing up with a lot of concern and care.
Too bad you are such a lousy person, with decent politics.
News flash: Most Americans and most Europeans of that time believed that blacks were inferior human beings. In fact they didn't limit it to blacks, they thought slavs, "celestials", Indians dot or feather, or pretty much anyone they encountered that had not achieved the technological level of Europe/America were inferior people. It was not limited to southerners in the US. You really need to read up on the origins of slavery in the Western Hemisphere, it was not started by nor ubiquitous to English North America nor was the United States the only or last nation with slavery in the Western Hemisphere.
I don't think it has to do with intellectual standards. It has more to do with being open to differing viewpoints
Oh, for fuck's sake....how did this, my thread, get to be about the Civil War? Mostly stupidity on the part of the posters....to include myself.
All I was saying is that there seems to be a total misunderstanding of what that 3/5 shit was all about.
Get a life people. Go hunting, or fishing or just get outside. It's a beautiful spring day here in north central Texas. The only reason I keep posting is to take a break from yard work. I don't like yard work. I would rather be out in my boat, the "Major Mistake", fishing.
The above rant had nothing to do with my post. Nowhere did I say other cultures didn't discriminate against blacks, slaves or the like. Clearly this discussion is about the United States.
Let's look at two different scenarios, positing slave holding states with a total population of 50 million free and 17 million slave and non-slave holding states with a total population of 60 million free.You still don't get it. The people in D.C. are the ones who decide just how many people there are in D.C. Hence, the 3/5 compromise changed the number of people in D.C. who could represent Southern States in D.C. Show me a pie that grows larger when you slice it up and I'll find you a Hollywood agent.
Any way you size the pie, any way you cut the pie, and any proportion of slave population, counting all or some portion of the slave population for purposes of allocating representation gives more power to slave-holding states than those states would receive without counting the slave population at all. This is true for any method of representational allocation.
Way to let the point fly right over your head. I clearly stated Americans and last time I checked that is pretty much synonymous with United States. You seem to believe that racism and the belief that blacks were inferior in 1860 was somehow magically limited to those states that maintained chattel slavery and that is most certainly not a fact. In fact when the New York draft riots broke out during the civil war the first thing the mob did was turn on free blacks living in New York City. Are you even aware that in 1840, just 20 years before the outbreak of the Civil War there were slaves in Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey (still 18 here in 1860), New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin? The issue of slavery and racism in the United States is not the simplistic good saintly northerners versus evil slave holding southerners that you evidently learned it was.
And even based on this criteria your reply was an unrelated rant since nowhere did I say this was limited to Southerners only. But since you'd like to talk about that, the facts are that this attitude was clearly predominantly held much more in the South than North; nearly the entire Southern economy was based around slavery, an economy that collapsed after the Civil War without said free labor. To try to parse blame for slavery/racism on the North, deserved in many respects, is useless hair splitting since it's irrelevant to the main point being made in the post of mine you quoted; that the 3/5ths compromises nearly 100 years earlier was most certainly not anti-slavery.
While the loss of slave labor may have factored into the collapse of the South's economy after the war, you need also acknowledge the much higher casualty rate among the Confederacy's male population and the economic devastation wrought by the Union army in the South. IMHO, William Tecumseh Sherman was more responsible for the South's post-war woes than was emancipation....nearly the entire Southern economy was based around slavery, an economy that collapsed after the Civil War without said free labor...
While the loss of slave labor may have factored into the collapse of the South's economy after the war, you need also acknowledge the much higher casualty rate among the Confederacy's male population and the economic devastation wrought by the Union army in the South. IMHO, William Tecumseh Sherman was more responsible for the South's post-war woes than was emancipation.
Good points, all. If you read the history of the Far East you will find out that they, Chinese and Japanese, thought themselves superior to all other humans they encountered. Well, till WWII that is. But, still, in their heart of hearts they still think/know they are superior. That is especially true of the Japaneses. Chinese too, but they are not as blatant about it.