Saturday, December 1, 2018
RE DK CURRENT POST ARTICLE I WHAT DOES NUMBERS REALLY MEAN
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
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. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.
The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Indentured servants was a large number. These white folks were in a ' servitude for years ', similar to slavery.
Indians, who were excluded because not taxed, were considered higher on the scale of humanity than negroes, who were unfree persons.
I think it is clear that neither negroes nor indians were considered members of ' the people ' as that term was used.
What is missing from this section is any definition of what constituted voting rights. Those were left to each state. Each state might very well have restricted the vote to only those with a certain wealth. They could have restricted it to only those who were not indentured servants. There were many restrictions. Certainly negroes were not considered to have any vote, regardless of what article 2 says about 3/5.
The purpose of the distinction, a white racist distinction, was to racially restrict federal representation of slave states versus white states. It limited the federal representation of southern whites, not enfranchising southern negro slaves as being 3/5ths of a person at all. The negroes had no political voice, both before and after the Constitution.
After the Civil War, this policy was reversed for party tactical reasons by the Radical Republicans by enfranchising male negroes, 50 years before white women got the vote!
https://blackpast.org/aah/three-fifths-clause-united-states-constitution-1787
"...Ironically, by pushing for the fullest possible count of inhabitants both legal and illegal, while failing to push for a path to citizenship, the Democrats are echoing, weirdly, the position of the antebellum white southerners. While they want these people counted to get full benefits and representation for their states, they don't particularly care if they get to vote." recent DK post excerpt
Bingo.
It never would have begun to occurred to white Southerners or white Northerners, before the Civil War, to have granted, under any foreseeable circumstances, voting rights to negroes.
Let's talk weird. The Democrats would have to get migrants and illegals the vote by force.
The Radical Republicans not only gave the freed negroes the vote, but also placed them in power in the South. That was not what Northern whites had elected them to do.
It just depends on your party.
"...The Republicans also favored this solution because they were frightened to simply degree Negro suffrage (as it was then called) in the Constitution, fearing that many northern states, sadly, would reject it...." DK
See references here, and on DK site, re Tocqueville on racism in America.
"...Ironically, by pushing for the fullest possible count of inhabitants both legal and illegal, while failing to push for a path to citizenship, the Democrats are echoing, weirdly, the position of the antebellum white southerners. While they want these people counted to get full benefits and representation for their states, they don't particularly care if they get to vote." recent DK post excerpt
Bingo.
It never would have begun to occurred to white Southerners or white Northerners, before the Civil War, to have granted, under any foreseeable circumstances, voting rights to negroes.
Let's talk weird. The Democrats would have to get migrants and illegals the vote by force.
The Radical Republicans not only gave the freed negroes the vote, but also placed them in power in the South. That was not what Northern whites had elected them to do.
It just depends on your party.
"...The Republicans also favored this solution because they were frightened to simply degree Negro suffrage (as it was then called) in the Constitution, fearing that many northern states, sadly, would reject it...." DK
See references here, and on DK site, re Tocqueville on racism in America.
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