The Constitution’s Immoral Compromise

[Richard]

An interesting debate amid the numerous other on-going Constitutional debates...and the beat goes on.

And so it goes...

Richard :munchin

The Constitution’s Immoral Compromise
NYT, 27 Feb 2013

Emory University students marched in anger last week over a decision that was reached more than 200 years ago. They were outraged, among other things, that the school’s president called the Constitution’s “three-fifths compromise” one of the “pragmatic half-victories” that assured the union.

Americans today are repulsed by the fact that the Constitution let each state’s House delegation be determined by adding all free citizens, except most Indians, and “three fifths of all other Persons.” Southerners wanted all slaves counted. Northerners thought none should be. The compromise let the South keep humans as property, increasing the region’s political power.

But did the framers have a choice? Could the compromise have been avoided? Would any other path have prevented a united United States or did the bargain only delay that division?

The Union Wasn’t Worth This Bargain

Paul Finkelman is the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at Albany Law School. He is the author of "Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson.''

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/26/the-constitutions-immoral-compromise/the-union-wasnt-worth-the-three-fifths-compromise-on-slavery

Morality Wasn’t the Issue in 1787

Henry L. Chambers Jr. is a professor at the University of Richmond School of Law.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/26/the-constitutions-immoral-compromise/morality-wasnt-the-issue-in-1787

A Moral Stand Was Not Out of the Question

Leslie M. Harris is the Winship Distinguished Research Professor in the Humanities at Emory University. She is the author of "In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626-1863."

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/26/the-constitutions-immoral-compromise/a-moral-stand-was-not-out-of-the-question

An Understandable Deal; No Good Alternative

Sanford Levinson is a professor at the University of Texas Law School and the author, most recently, of "Framed: America's 51 Constitutions and the Crisis of Governance."

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/26/the-constitutions-immoral-compromise/three-fifths-compromise-was-an-understandable-deal-on-slavery

Founders’ Fear of Division Made the Deal Inevitable

Raymond T. Diamond is the Jules F. & Frances L. Landry Distinguished Professor of Law and a vice chancellor at the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/02/26/the-constitutions-immoral-compromise/founders-fear-of-division-made-deal-on-slavery-inevitable

[charlietwo]

I would argue that had the 3/5th's clause not been the conclusion, 5/5ths of slavery worldwide would have existed for many more years.

[Streck-Fu]

Most of the comments following some of those give me a headache and a little nausea. It is amazing how many people can discuss the end of slavery and the freeing of a whole group of people numbering in the millions as a great thing while at the same time endorse that government should be more powerful, passing laws and constitutional amendments should be easier, and express support for ideas that would limit everyone's personal liberty.

[nousdefions]

And that my friend why "equality" is not Liberty. Liberty is freedom and the easiest way to "equality" is to make everyone slaves (to big government). Our founding documents guarantee our liberty and freedom. Life isn't fair and everyone is not equal, although we all have the same opportunities, we make our own paths and forge our own destiny. The moment you demand that your neighbors support you, is the moment you give up liberty.

[Trapper John]

And that my friend why "equality" is not Liberty. Liberty is freedom and the easiest way to "equality" is to make everyone slaves (to big government). Our founding documents guarantee our liberty and freedom. Life isn't fair and everyone is not equal, although we all have the same opportunities, we make our own paths and forge our own destiny. The moment you demand that your neighbors support you, is the moment you give up liberty.

Well stated, Bro :lifter For the most part the terms "Equal" and "Equality" should be replaced with "Equity" and "Equitable" IMO. Two very different meanings with totally different implications for a philosophy of governance. But then we get into an Ayn Rand philosophy and oh, we certainly don't want to go there.;)

[craigepo]

People need to tread carefully when judging historical events with present-day morals and ethics.

[jkirkthomas]

Trapper John said: "But then we get into an Ayn Rand philosophy and oh, we certainly don't want to go there."

I first read Ayn Rand when I was in college in the early '60s, and it made an impression on me that has stayed in place to this day. I have worked for a living all my life, and fail to understand how anyone can look themselves in the mirror if they think living off the government dole is okay.

But this is no longer the country I grew up in, the people who vote for a living outnumber the people who work for a living, and I hardly recognize it anymore. In the near future, to quote a Bob Dylan song, also from the early '60s, "There's a hard rain gonna fall," and all of us are going to get wet.

[nousdefions]

Ok, let's not go there. :eek:

"I pledge by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

[Ape Man]

The thing that strikes me about these types of debates is how few people even know about the arguments Lincoln made, much less address them.

Lincoln argument was that founders had intended for slavery to die a slow death that that is why they had a policy that forbade its expansion See his speech at Peoria (http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;rgn=div2;view=text;idno=l incoln2;node=lincoln2:282.1)

Lincoln argument was that the policy failed when the founder's successors failed to uphold the laws that the founders had laid down preventing slavery's expansion.

A lot of people don't realize that the Civil war was fought over whether or not slavery would be allowed to expand. I see a lot of people arguing that Lincoln would have let slavery remain to preserve the union. That is only half true.

He offered the south every assurance that slavery would not be interfered with in the southern states. But he would not budge on letting slavery expand into new territory even if such a compromise could have saved the union. This is what led the slave states to walk. Southern politicians understood that slavery had to expand if it was to survive.

Robert Toombs was one of the firebrands that convinced the south to leave. In his speech to Georgia Legislature he said....

In 1790 we had less than eight hundred thousand slaves. Under our mild and humane administration of the system they have increased above four millions. The country has expanded to meet this growing want, and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, have received this increasing tide of African labor; before the end of this century, at precisely the same rate of increase, the Africans among us in a subordinate condition will amount to eleven millions of persons. What shall be done with them? We must expand or perish. We are constrained by an inexorable necessity to accept expansion or extermination. Those who tell you that the territorial question is an abstraction, that you can never colonize another territory without the African slavetrade, are both deaf and blind to the history of the last sixty years. All just reasoning, all past history, condemn the fallacy.

The bottom line: I don't think the great failure of the American Constitution was the compromise, but rather that the original laws against expansion were done away with. Had slavery not been allowed to expand, it would have died a slow death as even the pro-slavery politicians of the time admitted (and Jefferson claimed to hope for).

[The Reaper]

Equal outcomes and equal opportunity are vastly different things.

TR

[PRB]

where is the "Hindsight is 20/20 debate.....yawn....

[Richard]

When you take the time to read them all, despite the various arguments presented, two points I think especially worth remembering emerge:

"We can criticize the three-fifths compromise as an accommodation to slavery, as we can criticize the Constitution for enforcing the continuation of slavery. But the question is not what we would do today but what the drafters of the Constitution, or those among them who opposed slavery, could have done in 1787." - Henry L. Chambers, Jr.

"Whether or not we now think this could have been avoided is less important than the fact that the framers apparently thought it could not." - Raymond T. Diamond

In that vein, it might be worth any such debate over the Constitution to then ask, "OK - if that was then, what might we (or they if in our 'experiential shoes') do now?" - something I think the framers considered and, therefore, made provisions for with their adoption of an amending process which, to be successful, demands as much compromise of us today as it did for them then.

Personally, I found all of the arguments presented in the OpEd debate to be thought provoking and worth the read.

Richard :munchin

[Trapper John]

where is the "Hindsight is 20/20 debate.....yawn....

Respectfully, Bro, I don't think Richard was looking for a hindsight debate. That would be a yawner. I agree with Richard that it is thought provoking to contemplate how we would handle the debate today.

To answer that question my sad conclusion is that we could not. My reasoning for coming to that conclusion could be voided if someone here could point to one significant issue in recent history (past 25 years) that was resolved through effective compromise.

[Trapper John]

Ok, let's not go there. :eek:

"I pledge by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

John Galt, from Atlas Shrugged :D Words to live by IMO.