That 3/5ths was a bargaining chip the " far sighted " slave owners got because they were rightfully concerned that the federal government legislators would out number them and pass detrimental legislation to the South. And of course that argument worked real well as we well know.
What the South should have done - using 20/20 hindsight - is instead of what they got required any civil legislation to be passed by a 2/3' s majority of all members of Congress and all revenue legislation to be passed by a 3/4th's of all members of Congress then slavery would not have been enshrined in the US Constitution and slavery would have eventually fallen apart in and of by itself without having caused 600,000 deaths and hundreds of millions in property destruction and a strong centralized government.
BTW: People using 20/20 hindsight can sit down on a newspaper and read the headlines.
That's the price of constitutional democracy -- sometimes you get laws you don't like.
It in no way "justifies" the imprisoning/enslaving of others, however. I don't have a right to enslave my neighbor in order to prevent Nancy Pelosi from enslaving me with new taxes, etc.
The reality is that the South unjustifiably and persistently derived most of its economic benefit from the forced labor of other human beings. To the extent that it was permitted by distortions to the Constitution and federal "compromises," shame on the feds.
But the confederate "case" for suffering under federal government pales in comparison to the suffering that occurred for the victims of their predation as the ultimate in slavery.
In fact, progressive libertarians should be quite a bit more annoyed with the confederacy than we often are, since they took the concept of atomized sovereignty (i.e. distributed power is better), twisted it into the "states' rights" concept, and then used it to argue that individual states have the "right" to violate the constitutional liberties of others.
The repercussions of these arguments reverberate even today. Every time "libertarian" Ron Paul, for instance, argues that the Lawrence versus Texas law that struck down "sodomy" laws is an unconstitutional violation of "state rights," I cringe. We should be defending the rights of the individual from predation of all levels of government as well as other individuals.
Whether one is enslaved by the federal, state, or little local hamlet's government shouldn't matter. Nor should it matter if the slavemaster is another private citizen.
Just my two cents.
Cheers,
Brian
Ron Getty <tradergroupe@...> wrote:
Dear Brian
That 3/5ths was a bargaining chip the " far sighted " slave owners got because they were rightfully concerned that the federal government legislators would out number them and pass detrimental legislation to the South. And of course that argument worked real well as we well know.
What the South should have done - using 20/20 hindsight - is instead of what they got required any civil legislation to be passed by a 2/3' s majority of all members of Congress and all revenue legislation to be passed by a 3/4th's of all members of Congress then slavery would not have been enshrined in the US Constitution and slavery would have eventually fallen apart in and of by itself without having caused 600,000 deaths and hundreds of millions in property destruction and a strong centralized government.
BTW: People using 20/20 hindsight can sit down on a newspaper and read the headlines.