Prager University: The Three-fifths Rule: Racist or Just Smart?
How many times have you hears someone use something called the three-fifths rule contained in the Constitution to suggest that the founders were racist bigots? Frequently, I’d guess. How many times have you heard this same term used to ensure that slavery was less likely to be sustained in the early United States? Likely, seldom to never.
However, the latter is actually the reason that this term and the clause in which it appears in the constitution was used…to ensure that the southern states were not given exorbitant representation that would make the voices for slavery louder in the new federal government.
Carol Swain, former professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University provides this short video that makes all that very clear and will enable you to speak the truth to the next person that makes the claim that the founders considered people of color only worth 60% as much as a white person. Utterly false and ridiculous.
