Comment by _rend | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _rend | Hacker News Reader

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-fifths_Compromise

The Three-fifths Compromise was a compromise reached among state delegates during the 1787 United States Constitutional Convention. Delegates disputed whether and how slaves would be counted when determining a state's total population, as this number would determine a state's number of seats in the House of Representatives and how much it would pay in taxes. The compromise counted three out of every five slaves as people...

In the US Constitution, the Three-fifths Compromise is part of Article 1, Section 2, Clause 3:

    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 [italics added].[2]

Article I, Section 9, Clause 1 is even more damning I think. Basically saying that importation of slaves must be allowed for at least the first 19 years of the country's existence.

> The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

How is that damning? The alternative was to create the union without the south. Then slavery would have continued much longer in the south. How would it have been better for the north to refuse to compromise? The constitution brought the end of slavery. It didn’t prop it up.

Ok - but that expired a long time ago, and the Civil Rights act was passed in 1964.

Is the complaint that we haven’t erased the slavery related stuff from the record?

What has this got to do with people being racist now?

> the Civil Rights act was passed in 1964.

A Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964.

Civil Rights Acts were also passed in 1866, 1871, 1875, 1957, 1960, 1968, and 1991.

But the passage of a Civil Rights Act is not, in and of itself, an indication of the end of systemic racism.

What evidence would prove that systemic racism doesn't exist?

“But the passage of a Civil Rights Act is not, in and of itself, an indication of the end of systemic racism“

Systemic racism is rampant in every country I have lived in, the US included.

But you are changing the subject.

The question is about why it matters that it was once part of the constitution if it is no longer?

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