Tennessee state Rep. Justin Lafferty recently extolled the goodness of the so-called “Three-Fifths Compromise” on the House floor, saying it was an honest effort to end slavery.
Like other pages from the Republican racist playbook, you hear pretty much the same talking points from GOP talking heads around the country.
Sadly, because many Americans do not know their nation’s history, it has taken too long to begin correcting this barrage of intentional disinformation. The timing for re-interpreting slave history has made a suspect merger with right-wing attacks on voting rights.
Meanwhile last week, St. Louis and nearly 100 other cities hosted National John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Action events.
This and similar activities are part of a counter-offensive to protect the right to vote. Since the record-breaking voter turnout last November, GOP dominated legislatures in many states have unleashed an assault on voting rights with a reported 370 proposed bills designed to disenfranchise and suppress the vote of communities of color, the elderly and the young – groups that tend to vote Democratic. The remnants of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are in the crosshairs of the GOP.
These treacherous acts have inspired Defenders of Democracy to make good trouble and to actively support U.S. Senate Bill 1, the For the People Act, and U.S. House Bill 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
If passed, a pathway to securing voting rights and protections against current laws intended to suppress the vote in targeted communities, particularly Black and Brown communities, would be cleared.
As for Lafferty’s laughable – and evil – comment, I prefer to use the numeric version of three-fifths to emphasize the fact that enslaved people were considered a fraction of a human under this law.
The 3/5 Compromise was reached by delegates from pro-slavery states during the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia as they grappled with the issues of taxation and representation.
It was a slick move to act like they were acknowledging some humanity of Black folks, an overture to Northern abolitionists. The real deal was that with the three-fifth count, Southern states would get greater representation, but be spared full taxation because the enslaved human beings would not be counted as full citizens.
The Compromise gave pro-slavery states the edge needed to consolidate power. The decision had a major impact on U.S. politics for decades, especially on how the nation would look forever at Black bodies as merely political fodder.
The white South has been flexing its muscles ever sense—even after the 14th Amendment led to repeal of the 3/5 Compromise.
Here we are in 2021, embroiled in a campaign that seeks to take the sacred vote from Black people by revising history. History is repeating itself.
The truth is that white supremacists believed then, as they believe now, that Black folks will never be equal to whites. All laws, policies and practices must affirm that superiority.
We heard that in the Dred Scott decision in 1856 when Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who was the first Catholic Supreme Court Justice, proclaimed that Blacks—enslaved and free—were not and would never be citizens. Further, Black people had no rights that whites were bound to respect.
The Compromise concept was at the heart of voter suppression, then and is now. Black folks cannot be given the right to vote because it would be a potential gateway to our full participation as citizens.
If we are sub-humans, three-fifths of a person, Black people can never be equal to whites. Voting is one validation of our citizenship.
We who believe in democracy must be vigilant about attempts to drag us back in time. A time when African Americans were treated as private property with no rights and no voice. In the spirit of the Sankofa bird, which implored Africans to reach back into history for traditions and customs that have been left behind, we must go forward with the clear understanding of the past.
