Thoughts on Winnowill's 3/5s

[blackwolfalpha1]

Taken from Wikipedia. . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3/5_compromise
"Delegates opposed to slavery generally wished to count only the free inhabitants of each state. Delegates supportive of slavery, on the other hand, generally wanted to count slaves in their actual numbers. Since slaves could not vote, slaveholders would thus have the benefit of

Comments

[jordan179]

Taxation was in 1787 merely a side issue, because tax levels were so low as to be almost irrelevant. The important question was representation. The South wanted to retain leadership of the United States by counting Negro slaves, who could not vote, as "population" for the POV of apportioning representation. The North did not want to allow this. The people who feel insulted that the original Constitution only counted blacks as "3/5 of a person" therefore get the issue entirely backward.

[blackwolfalpha1]

I did not think of the terms of taxation as a historical issue. I was thinking of the here and now in terms of taxation.

So, kind of a population without representation then?