Slavery / Bill of Rights

[fields316_2000]

Does anyone out there know exactly what the Bill of Rights states as what percentage of a person a slave was equal to? I read in a Malcom X book, that the government listed slaves as only 1/3 of 'a man'..Is there any link or site that I can validate this claim?

 

[ARon]

3/5th's

 

[AmerikazMost]

3/5's and it wasn't in the Bill of Rights.

 

[Illuminattile]

It was indeed 3/5ths, but it's a somewhat misunderstood clause.

It referred to voting, and was introduced to reduce the number of votes slave-owning Southern states would have. Anti-slave states didn't want slaves to count towards the number of representatives States would have, pro-slave states did and a compromise was reached.

 

[AmerikazMost]

It was indeed 3/5ths, but it's a somewhat misunderstood clause.

It referred to voting, and was introduced to reduce the number of votes slave-owning Southern states would have.

It was entitled the 3/5's Compromise or the Great Compromise and it meant that 3/5 of the slave population of a state would count towards the total population. This would effect not only the number of electoral votes for a state, but also the number of representatives in the House.



Oh, and it was in Article I of the Constitution.

 

[Morris]

The real reason for it was because the South, as usual, wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

Until the end of the Civil War, the Southern states carefully stipulated into law that slaves were "property," thus things like the Fugitive Act, the Dred Scott decision etc. But of course they wanted the property to be people if it ensured them more seats in the House.

One of the first articles of the Confederate Constitution reaffirmed slaves as property.

 

[AmerikazMost]

The real reason for it was because the South, as usual, wanted to have their cake and eat it too.

Until the end of the Civil War, the Southern states carefully stipulated into law that slaves were "property," thus things like the Fugitive Act, the Dred Scott decision etc. But of course they wanted the property to be people if it ensured them more seats in the House.

One of the first articles of the Confederate Constitution reaffirmed slaves as property.

And the North couldn't do anything about it because they wanted to preserve the Union.