The Electoral College #2
The Origin of and Effects of the Three-Fifths Compromise
What do people mean when they say the Electoral College is racist? In 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention found themselves confronted with the question of slavery and how hundreds of thousands of enslaved Black people in the new republic would affect the Constitution. The humanity and rights of these enslaved Americans were not a priority of the delegates as they debated this issue. Rather, their debates centered on if and how the enslaved persons would be counted when allocating seats in the new House of Representatives.
On June 11, 1787, Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed that only the free inhabitants of each state should count towards apportionment (distribution by state) of the House of Representatives. Edward Rutledge and Pierce Butler of South Carolina then proposed what became the Three-Fifths Compromise, suggesting that House seats be apportioned “in proportion to the whole number of white & other free Citizens & inhabitants of every age sex & condition including those bound to servitude for a term of years and three fifths [sic] of all other persons not comprehended in the foregoing description, except Indians not paying taxes, in each State.” To find out more click here.
Also, in the first installment of this blog series on the Electoral College, we discussed how it translates our votes into electoral votes for the President. Read here. |