This is one of the many reasons we fight. The direct line from Wounded Knee to Fallujah to Afghanistan marks the bloody trail of US imperialism and the inhuman rule of capital.

I'd prefer they remove the part about Europeans ever coming to America, but I digress...

What's interesting is that the voice of tea party fascism and Standard-bearer of American White Supremacy Glenn Beck was on Fox DEFENDING 3/5s clause: http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201101060023

Maybe a little analysis is needed on this? What do people think?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Glenn Beck is largely correct. The 3/5 clause concerned apportionment of congressional seats.

As the Wikipedia entry Mike linked to above explains:

<blockquote>Delegates opposed to slavery generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. Delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, generally wanted to count slaves in their actual numbers. Since slaves could not vote, slaveholders would thus have the benefit of increased representation in the House and the Electoral College. The final compromise of counting "all other persons" as only three-fifths of their actual numbers reduced the power of the slave states relative to the original southern proposals, but increased it over the northern position.</blockquote>

The actual language of the clause is:

<blockquote>Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.</blockquote>

Beck is engaged in hyperbole when he claims the 3/5 compromise was a step towards abolition as if that was the main motive. Rather it was a reflection of the configuration of forces in a power struggle between the plantation south and the industrial north with the latter striving to reduce the congressional power of the former for all sorts of reasons other than outright abolition.

But Beck's underlying point is correct: within the framework of a slave-owning country the progressive position was to demand that enslaved Africans not be counted at all and, failing that, that they be counted at the smallest fraction possible. What was being determined by the clause was not the humanity of the people being counted but the political power of those who claimed them as property. It was a definite "less is better" situation. (The clause also determined the taxes each state was responsible for paying, and in this respect benefitted the plantation owners who in effect were paying 3/5 of the tax rate on the product of unpaid labor.)

So, while its a popular trope used in exposing the racist nature of the U.S. at its birth, characterizing the 3/5 clause as counting enslaved Africans as "3/5 of a human being" misrepresents its actual political content.

Now I need to take a shower.

Of course all that is true. This is a document written by propertied white men establishing the division of wealth and political power built on a foundation of slavery and genocide. So yes we need to continue to insist on the underlying hypocrisy of all the talk of men being created equal. But as they say "hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue." This language of equality was not just empty talk or a hustle as is often suggested. It had truly subversive and revolutionary implications that were felt and understood to varying degrees by everybody. It was a real upheaval happening in the consciousness of diverse forces (merchants, sailors, yeoman farmers, slaves, and even in some instances slave-owners like Thomas Jefferson as we've discussed previously.)

And this is why the historical "micro details" are still important here. The original Constitution mentions enslaved people and slavery only twice: in restricting the power of Congress to ban the slave trade until 1808 and in the 3/5 clause. In both of these instances they illuminate not just the fact that this was a slave-holding country, but also that slavery was a central object of political struggle and not just between the fractions of the white ruling class but also between the enslaved and and the slave-owners.

If slavery and white supremacy were a seamless and permanently stable feature of US society NEITHER of these passages would have been included. It is precisely because of the unsettling effects of the slaves persistent assertions of their own humanity (through a million acts of rebellion, resistance, and flight as well as direct appeals) and because of the genuinely subversive implications of all the talk of equality that it was "neccesary" to insist that Congress be restrained (but only temporarily!) from outlawing the slave trade. And similarly it was only because of the struggles of the enslaved that there were proto-abolitionist forces involved in writing the Constitution insisting that slaves not be counted at all for purposes of apportionment. The 3/5 clause is thus actually a mark made on the constitution by the slaves themselves and by the effect of their struggles on the thinking of a fraction of northern whites.

So when people say that the 3/5 clause defined the slaves as only 3/5 human this frequently reflects an actual misconception that should be corrected because it creates a false impression of the stability of the white supremacist social order.

Interesting point TNL. My first inclination was to agree with Mike, though I never had heard the point you make in your last comment made in regard to the writing of the constitution and the 3/5 clause. Of course I have heard it made about the Civil War and Reconstruction in regard to the agency of the slaves and their crucial role in effecting key historical moments. Definitely something to ponder over. I wonder if you had read this argument somewhere else and by what writer?

Very cultural piece of writing!