When Republicans selected an edited version of the Constitution to read on the House Floor, one which left out sections such as the “three-fifths compromise” that says slaves will be counted as three-fifths of a person when assessing the apportionment of “representatives and direct taxes,” Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) charged that the “redacted Constitutional reading gives little deference to the long history of improving the Constitution” through anti-slavery and civil rights struggles. For very different reasons, Glenn Beck slammed the use of the edited version, because in his opinion the “three-fifths compromise” reflects “the genius of the Constitution.”
Bryan Fischer, the Director of Issue Analysis for the American Family Association, on the other hand, managed to both endorse the decision to leave the “three-fifths compromise” out of the reading while also defending the “three-fifths compromise”:
You’d think that the Democrats, with all their bloviation about how the Constitution is a living and breathing document that must change with the times, would be ecstatic at Republican recognition of legitimate changes to our founding document.
But no. The grievance industry, represented by Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. and other plantation politicians, is royally hacked off that the original part of the Constitution that dealt with representation in the slave-holding states wasn’t read. News flash for Rep. Jackson: the Civil War ended 146 years ago. Wake up and smell the freedom! Get over yourself and get on up into the 21st century while you’re at it.
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So the grievance industry, still stuck woefully in the past, desperately wanted the Republicans to read the “three-fifths” clause. The Republicans didn’t, for one simple reason. It’s no longer part of the Constitution.
And here’s the kicker: while the Democrats wanted that read because they erroneously believe that it says that slaves were three-fifths of a person, the Constitution itself says exactly the opposite. The “three-fifths” clause clearly affirms the personhood of slaves.
Check it out. Here is the relevant portion, with emphasis added:
“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.”
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Bottom line: the three-fifths clause is not a pro-slavery clause, it is an anti-slavery clause.
And the same clause affirms the personhood of all slaves. You could look it up.
Again, this is the same Bryan Fischer who several prospective GOP presidential candidates shared a stage with at the Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit last year.
