compiled & edited by Daniel Hagadorn

The Framers planted and nurtured these early abolitionist seeds from which the recognition of black equality and the eventual end of slavery would later blossom. This fact was further clarified by Bishop Richard Allen, a former slave from Pennsylvania who was later freed after converting his master to Christianity. Allen, a close friend of Benjamin Rush and several other anti-slavery Framers, later founded the first fully independent black denomination in the United States, the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816.

In an early address “To the People of Color,” he explained:

RICHARD ALLEN (1764-1831)… Founder of the AME Church (1816)… “Conductor” of the Underground Railroad (1797-1831)

“Many of the white people have been instruments in the hands of God for our good, even such as have held us in captivity, [and] are now pleading our cause [emancipation] with earnestness and zeal.” [1]

While the Framers made great strides towards ending the institution of slavery, their efforts would not reach fruition until generations later. Yet, somehow in the face of incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, charges persist that the Framers failed to practically recognize that “all men are created equal.” [2]

In fact, politically correct revisionists have even claimed that the U.S. Constitution proves the Framers considered blacks to be “only three-fifths of a person.” This assertion is yet another blatant falsehood. The three-fifths clause was NOT a measurement of human worth; rather, it was an anti-slavery provision designed to limit the political power of Southern slaveholders by denying them additional representatives in Congress. Moreover, it also provided the South with a significant incentive to emancipate their slaves, since these Freedmen would then count as “five-fifths” of a person (for the purposes of representation).

Once emancipated, these former slaves would have given the South additional representation and greater legislative power. Consequently, (since Freedmen often outnumbered whites in the southern states) their presence would cripple any attempts by “pro-slaveryites” to regain political power. (NOTE: Free blacks already had the right to vote in several northern states and were not affected by the three-fifths compromise).

As the always eloquent Gouverneur Morris sarcastically inquired of the Southern delegates:

GOUVERNEUR MORRIS (1752-1816)… Founding Father… Signatory Articles of Confederation & U.S. Constitution… Delegate to Continental Congress [NY] (1778)… Delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 [PA]… U.S. Minister to France (1792-1794)… U.S. Senator [NY] (1800-1803)

“Are they [slaves] admitted as citizens? Then why are they not admitted on an equality with White Citizens? Are they admitted as property? Then why is not other property admitted to the computation?” [3]

Elbridge Gerry added his own biting retort to the Southerners:

ELBRIDGE GERRY (1744-1814)… Founding Father… Signatory Declaration of Independence & Articles of Confederation… Delegate to Continental Congress [MA] (1776-1780, 1783-1785)… Delegate to Constitutional Convention of 1787 [MA]… U.S. Representative [MA] (1789-1793)… Governor [MA] (1810-1812)… U.S. Vice President [5th] (1813-1814)

“If Georgians can count their slaves, can New Englanders count their cattle?” [4]

Based on James Madison’s meticulous notes of the Constitutional Convention, two prominent professors offer further clarification on the true meaning of the three-fifths clause:

DR. THOMAS G. WEST (1945- )… Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas (1974- )… Director & Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute… B.A. Cornell University (1967)… U.S. Army Lieutenant (1969-1970)… Ph.D. Claremont Graduate University (1974)… Author of Vindicating the Founders: Race, Sex, Class, and Justice in the Origins of America (1997)

“[T]he Constitution allowed Southern States to count three-fifths of their slaves toward the population that would determine numbers of representatives in the federal legislature. This clause is often singled out today as a sign of black dehumanization: they are only three-fifths human. But the provision applied to slaves, not blacks. That meant that free blacks—and there were many, North as well as South—counted the same as whites.” [5]

[In the interest of full disclosure to Republican and Democrat readers, both Drs. Walter E. Williams and Thomas Sowell are Libertarians].

DR. WALTER E. WILLIAMS (1936- )… B.A., M.A., & Ph.D. Economics UCLA… Doctor of Humane Letters Virginia Union University, Grove City College… Doctor of Laws from Washington & Jefferson College… John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics (1980- )… Author of over 150 publications which have been published journals Economic Inquiry, American Economic Review, Georgia Law Review, Journal of Labor Economics, Social Science Quarterly, Cornell Journal of Law & Public Policy, Newsweek, Ideas on Liberty, National Review, Reader’s Digest, Cato Journal, Policy Review… Author of America: A Minority Viewpoint; The State Against Blacks (PBS documentary “Good Intentions”); All It Takes Is Guts; South Africa’s War Against Capitalism; Do the Right Thing: The People’s Economist Speaks; More Liberty Means Less Government… Author of nationally syndicated weekly column published by 140 newspapers/web sites… Member of board of directors at Grove City College, Reason Foundation, Hoover Institution… Member of advisory boards at Cato Institute, Landmark Legal Foundation, Institute of Economic Affairs, Heritage Foundation… Fellowships and awards from Foundation for Economic Education Adam Smith Award, Hoover Institution National Fellow, Ford Foundation Fellow, Valley Forge Freedoms Foundation George Washington Medal of Honor, Veterans of Foreign Wars U.S. News Media Award, Adam Smith Award, California State University Distinguished Alumnus Award, George Mason University Faculty Member of the Year, Alpha Kappa Psi Award.

“It was slavery’s opponents who succeeded in restricting the political power of the South by allowing them to count only three-fifths of their slave population in determining the number of congressional representatives. The three-fifths of a vote provision applied only to slaves, not to free blacks in either the North or South.” [6]

Why do revisionists so often and so broadly misrepresent the three-fifths clause? Dr. Williams continued:

“Politicians, news media, college professors, and leftists of other stripes are selling us lies and propaganda. To lay the groundwork for their increasingly successful attack on our Constitution, they must demean and criticize its authors. As Senator Joe Biden [D-DE] demonstrated during the Clarence Thomas hearings, the framers’ ideas about natural law must be trivialized or they must be seen as racists.” [7]

Having grown up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Richard Allen housing projects (his neighbors included a young Bill Cosby), Dr. Williams developed an insightful perspective on these issues that present some troubling implications for our modern society. He further clarifies: [8]

“So many Americans graduate high school and college having learned what to think as opposed to acquiring the tools of critical, independent thinking. Likewise, they have learned little about our nation’s history. As such, they fall prey to the rhetoric of political charlatans and quacks.

“Now let’s turn to history. Dr. Condoleezza Rice said, in an October 2003 speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, ‘When the Founding Fathers said ‘We the People,’ they did not mean me. My ancestors were considered three-fifths of a person.’ Though not Dr. Rice’s intention, this common misunderstanding of history is often used to discredit the great men who founded our nation—without telling the whole story.

“The Founding Fathers struggled over the issue of slavery. George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, Patrick Henry and others were highly critical of slavery, describing it as a ‘lamentable evil,’ ‘disease of ignorance,’ ‘oppressive dominion’ and ‘an inconsistency not to be excused.’

“The delegates at the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention had to negotiate many contentious deal-breaking issues. Slavery was one of those issues. The Southern states made it clear that they wouldn’t vote to ratify the Constitution if it abolished slavery or ended the slave trade. Delegates from slave states wanted slaves counted as whole persons for the purposes of determining representation in Congress. That would have given the South greater political power.

“Delegate James Wilson offered a compromise whereby slaves would be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining the number of representatives a state had in the House of Representatives. The corresponding compromise established 1808 as the year the international slave trade would be abolished.

“There’s little question that slavery is an abomination and a gross violation of human rights, but the Founders had to decide whether there’d be a Union. Had morality been their sole guide, the Constitution would have never been ratified and a Union would not have been created.

“One question we might ask those who condemn the Founders is whether black Americans would be better off or worse off today with the Northern states having gone their way and the Southern states having gone theirs, and as a consequence no U.S. Constitution and no Union.

“Americans’ ignorance of our history and inability to think critically has provided considerable ammunition for those who want to divide us in pursuit of their agenda. I don’t usually buy into conspiracy theories, but it’s tempting to think America’s charlatans, quacks, and demagogues are in cahoots with the teaching establishments at our government schools and colleges to dumb down the nation.”

DR. THOMAS SOWELL (1930- ) B.A. Economics, magna cum laude Harvard College (1958), M.A. Economics Columbia University (1959), Ph.D. Economics University of Chicago (1968)… Senior Fellow at Hoover Institution (1980- )… Professor of Economics at UCLA (1974-1980), Visiting Professor of Economics at Amherst College (1977), Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1976-1977), Project Director, The Urban Institute (1972-1974), Associate Professor of Economics at UCLA (1970-1972), Associate Professor of Economics at Brandeis University (1969-1970), Assistant Professor of Economics at Cornell University (1965-1969), Economic Analyst at AT&T (1964-1965), Lecturer in Economics at Howard University (1963-1964), Instructor in Economics at Rutgers University (1962-1963), Labor Economist at U.S. Department of Labor (1961-1962)… Author of On Classical Economics (2006); Black Rednecks and White Liberals (2005); The Quest for Cosmic Justice (1999); Conquests and Cultures (1998); Migrations and Cultures (1996); The Vision of the Anointed (1995); Race and Culture: A World View (1994); A Conflict of Visions (1987); Ethnic America (1981); Knowledge and Decisions (1980); Say’s Law: An Historical Analysis (1972).

Dr. Sowell—himself a product of Harlem, New York—expands on these modern suppositions and provides valuable insight into the factors destroying opportunities for black success, particularly in the inner cities: [9]

“If the share of the black vote that goes to the Democrats ever falls to 70 percent, it may be virtually impossible for the Democrats to win the White House or Congress, because they have long ago lost the white male vote and their support among other groups is eroding. Against that background, it becomes possible to understand their desperate efforts to keep blacks paranoid, not only about Republicans but about American society in general.

“Liberal Democrats, especially, must keep blacks fearful of racism everywhere, including in an administration [2005] whose Cabinet includes people of Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic, and Jewish ancestry, and two consecutive black Secretaries of State. Blacks must be kept believing that their only hope lies with liberals.

“Not only must the present be distorted, so must the past—and any alternative view of the future must be nipped in the bud. That is why prominent minority figures that stray from the liberal plantation must be discredited, debased and, above all, kept from becoming federal judges.

“A thoughtful and highly intelligent member of the California Supreme Court like Justice Janice Rogers Brown [a potential appointee to the U.S. Supreme Court] must be smeared as a right-wing extremist, even though she received 76 percent of the vote in California, hardly a right-wing extremist state. But desperate politicians cannot let facts stand in their way.

“Least of all could they afford to let Janice Rogers Brown become a national figure on the federal bench. The things she says and does could lead other blacks to begin to think independently—and that in turn threatens the whole liberal house of cards. If a smear is what it takes to stop her that is what liberal politicians and the liberal media will use.

“It’s ‘not personal’ as they say when they smear someone. It doesn’t matter how outstanding or upstanding Justice Brown is. She is a threat to the power that means everything to liberal politicians. The Democrats’ dependence on blacks for vote’s means that they must keep blacks dependent on them.

“Black self-reliance would be almost as bad as blacks becoming Republicans, as far as liberal Democrats are concerned. All black progress in the past must be depicted as the result of liberal government programs and all hope of future progress must be depicted as dependent on the same liberalism. In reality, reductions in poverty among blacks and the rise of blacks into higher level occupations were both more pronounced in the years leading up to the civil rights legislation and welfare state policies of the 1960s than in the years that followed.

“Moreover, contrary to political myth, a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But facts have never stopped politicians or ideologues before and show no signs of stopping them now.

“What blacks have achieved for themselves, without the help of liberals, is of no interest to liberals. Nothing illustrates this better than political reactions to academically successful black schools.

“Despite widespread concerns expressed about the abysmal educational performances of most black schools, there is remarkably little interest in those relatively few black schools which have met or exceeded national standards. Anyone who is serious about the advancement of blacks would want to know what is going on in those ghetto schools whose students have reading and math scores above the national average, when so many other ghetto schools are miles behind in both subjects. But virtually all the studies of such schools have been done by conservatives, while liberals have been strangely silent.

“Achievement is not what liberalism is about. Victimhood and dependency are.

“Black educational achievements are a special inconvenience for liberals because those achievements have usually been a result of methods and practices that go directly counter to prevailing theories in liberal educational circles and are anathema to the teachers’ unions that are key supporters of the Democratic Party.

“Many things that would advance blacks would not advance the liberal agenda. That is why the time is long overdue for the two to come to a parting of the ways.”

Our country desperately needs to dissolve the distinctions of race and remember that WE are ALL Americans. Principles must replace partisan talking-points and traditional right/left party alliances if we are to transcend the bigotry and discrimination fostered by political correctness, multiculturalism, and social[ized] justice.

At the end of the day, the most important question to answer is simply this: Has a sense of special grievance ever helped advance any people in any nation for any reason—or has what happened in centuries past been exploited by historical revisionists as a distraction to incite counterproductive divisiveness? The “elites” are  relentless in their attempts to divide Americans against Americans using any available means, and one of their most effective weapons has been to play the victim card—any color will do.