It would have been racist if they counted as less than a person because of race.
They were actually counted as less than a person because they were slaves, or owned by other people. Not a good reason, I know, but less race-based at that time than economic and social. People of many races were slaves at that time. Mostly black, yes, but not exclusively. (This is a touchy subject, and I want to say that I am not a scholar on this subject, although I have read a lot. Slavery is and was a horrible, horrible thing. I don't treat this subject lightly. If I offend anyone, I am very sorry.) The hottest debates at the time were religious in nature, not so much race based. Many activists of the time cried foul if the slave was Christian, but thought it was perfectly OK to enslave a person who was not. There was a lot of trouble over missionaries teaching Christianity to the southern slave population. According to much of what I've read (and as horrible as it sounds), moving from general slavery to black-only slavery was more an economic decision than a racist decision. The race factor mainly came in because there was a ready supply of new slaves being shipped from countries that had a black population, and the fact that it was a lot easier to identify an "escaped" black slave than an "escaped" white slave when the slave tried to blend into society. Then when importation of new slaves was banned, the only ready supply for new slaves was by enslaving new children from within the enslaved population. Which was by that time mostly black. Not that slavery was ever good, but at the end of the colonial period it was not the racist institutionalized slavery that it became over the next hundred years. And racism grew right along with it. African Americans (as many literally were) and native born Black Americans appear to have had more freedom and opportunity in the 18th century than they did at the start of the 20th. Which basically was all to say the 3/5 rule was a bad, evil policy, but not necessarily a racist one. Just a thought. Jerry Johnson >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/18/01 01:39PM >>> You are correct. But the fact that it separated a group and counted them as less than a person is a racist practice, I think. At 12:32 PM 12/18/2001 -0600, you wrote: > >From what I recall from that is that it wasn't based on Racism but the >opposite. It was one way for the North to prevent the South from having >a disproportionate number of representatives, thereby being able to >perpetuate slavery legally. By allowing slaves to only be considered >3/5th's of a person, the north was able to reduce the south's >representation. Well, that's what my history teacher told me. ______________________________________________________________________ Dedicated Windows 2000 Server PIII 800 / 256 MB RAM / 40 GB HD / 20 GB MO/XFER Instant Activation · $99/Month · Free Setup http://www.pennyhost.com/redirect.cfm?adcode=cold fusiona Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/cf-community@houseoffusion.com/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
