The 3/5 clause: The first step towards Civil War

Module 10

            The Civil War was caused by a myriad of conflicting pressures, principles, and prejudices, fueled by sectional differences and pride, and set into motion by a most unlikely set of political events. The Three-Fifths Compromise allowed a state to count three-fifths of each Black person in determining political representation in the House. The three-fifths ratio, had a major effect on pre-Civil War political affairs due to the disproportionate representation of slave-holding states.  As a result, southerners dominated the Presidency, the Speakership of the House, and the Supreme Court in the period prior to the Civil War.  Southern colonists relied on slavery and were among the richest in America. Their cash crops of tobacco, indigo, and rice depended on slave labor, which they were not willing to give up.

            The three-fifths figure was the outgrowth of a debate that had taken place within the Continental Congress in 1783. The Articles of Confederation had apportioned taxes not according to population but according to land values. The states consistently undervalued their land in order to reduce their tax burden. To rectify this situation, a special committee recommended apportioning taxes by population. At the Constitutional Convention, the North wanted to count slaves as people verses property seeing as taxes were determined by population. On the other hand, the South wanted slaves to be counted as people for apportioning Representatives. The compromise clearly reflected the strength of the pro-slavery forces at the convention. For example, in 1793 slave states would have been apportioned 33 seats in the House of Representatives had the seats been assigned based on the free population; instead they were apportioned 47. In 1812, slaveholding states had 76 instead of the 59 they would have had; in 1833, 98 instead of 73.

            The first U.S. National government began under the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. This document said nothing about slavery. It left the power to legalize slavery, as well as most powers to the individual states. After their experience with the British, the colonists doubted a strong central government. The new national government consisted solely of a Congress in which each state had one vote. States with large populations wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on population. States with small populations wanted each state to have the same number of representatives, like under the Articles of Confederation.

            At the time the Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, there were more than 500,000 black American slaves. Jefferson had expressed American injustice and explained why the colonists were breaking away and were no longer under any obligations of civil obedience with the British. His words stated America’s beliefs of freedom and equality. Many colonists, even slave holders, hated slavery. Thomas Jefferson called it a “hideous blot” on America. However, in spite of his beliefs, Thomas Jefferson himself was a slave owner that had owned more than 100 slaves. Slaves accounted for about one-fifth of the population in the American colonies. Most of them lived in the Southern colonies, where slaves made up 40 percent of the population.

            The fugitive slave clause allowed escaped slaves to be chased into the North and caught. It also resulted in the illegal kidnapping and return to slavery for thousands of free blacks. The Three-Fifths Compromise increased the South’s representation in Congress and the Electoral College. Another compromise found in section 9 of Article I, stipulates that Congress would not be able to prohibit the importation of slaves before 1808, although they may tax them $10 per slave. This helped to offset the Southern fears that Congress’ power to regulate commerce would be used to abolish slavery. This provision could not be changed by amendment, therefore, giving the slave trade a 20 year reprieve.

            While the Constitutional Convention was debating in Philadelphia, there was a second compromise that was taking place in New York. With many members absent and the South for the time being holding a majority, Congress had passed the Northwest Ordinance, which banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. This land would be divided into five states: Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and parts of Wisconsin. The Northwest Ordinance had a clause promising that slaves who escaped to the Northwest Territories would be returned to their owners. This was part of the price of making the Northwest Territories free.

Primary source

http://webct.dvc.edu/SCRIPT/HIST120_5180_FA11/scripts/student/serve_page.pl?1219012956+readings120_onlinea.htm+OFF+readings120_onlinea.htm

secondary sources

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States Volume 1: American

Beginnings to Reconstruction. The New Press, New York, 2003.

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty. New York, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009. 

A Critique "The 'Mudsill' Theory," by James Henry Hammond

Modul 8

I will critique the speech to the U.S senate, as a primary source in which Henry Hammond is recounting the thinking behind slavery and what it meant to south as well as the north. Whats remarkable about this speech it does not use so much slanted language to promote slavery, but rather he tired to justify it in terms in what it meant to the socio economic system of the time. The challenge about critiquing another person’s work is to put your own prejudices to the side and analyze the document as a page of history for what it is. The ideas in this speech may contradict what I believe in, but as a history blogger I have to interpret and analyze the speech for what it is and the implications that it holds in today’s society.

 Hammond states, “In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement.” This quote summarizes what is going on in today’s society and the divisions between the classes. Hammond does not distinguish slavery from "operatives," as the north called manual labors. He makes the argument that what we call slaves are better of than the north’s form of slavery, the manual laborers. It’s a very interesting comparison and I believe that, manual laborers are today’s modern day slaves.

The industries of today's modern cities employ the same labor that Hammond describes in this passage:

"the poor ye always have with you;" for the man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in the market, and take the best he can get for it; in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and "operatives," as you call them, are essentially slaves. The difference between us is that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any hour in any street in any of your large towns”.

The capitalist system and our society’s basic economy revolve around the laborers and the low income workers to benefit the upper classes. The inferiority of African Americans that Hammond refers to throughout the passage is ignorance and completely untrue, but slavery that he refers to in the north does exist and is just masked under a different term. In today’s societies we are not so called slaves, but we are slaves to the capitalist system constantly expending our time and energy to make a living, and not having the time to analyze and fight for a better future.

The correlation between slavery and laborers is motivated by money.  Being a slave or laborer still filled that void of cheap laborers, it doesn’t matter which way you construe it the North and south were both extremely dependant on cheap labor.

The same inequalities that were seen in the past are still being fought today. Economic policy of low income labors and the division of rich and poor has been ingrained into us, and is seen as the status quo in the present day United States.

The motive behind the Declaration of Independence

Ala Rasheed 

The declaration of independence gave the nation a unilateral enemy (British), in which it united the people and functioned to mobilize certain groups of Americans, and ignoring others. It was  the declaration of independence that inspired a revolution, which was orchestrated by strong radical language like freedom, liberty and justice, but the underlying structure was slave vs. indentured servitude, and was created to keep the lower class in constant conflict, and remain in the status quo. An example of the extraneous circumstances that pitted indentured servitude and slave against each other is evident in this passage by Edmund Morgan: “Virginias ruling class, having proclaimed that all white men were superior to black, went on to offer their social (but white inferiors) a number of benefits previously denied them.” (Zinn 30).Morgan goes on to conclude that by giving a little, and prosper a little, ” he would become less turbulent, less dangerous, and would see his big neighbor not as an extortionist but as  a powerful protector of their common interest” (Zinn 30). The practice of maintaining order by the ruing elite is not supposed to be looked at broadly, but examined in the underlying context on how it affected society as whole. Its implications were apparent increasing a division of the lower classes to help stem rebellion. Economic motives are the main culprit, but physical, psychological abuse, and outright domination is what kept the ball rolling. Imperialism creates divisions in society in which classes and people are pinned against each other for individualist notions rather than greater good of the community. The bourgeois which are the affluent middle upper class controlled most of the wealth, in Boston alone the 1% of property owners owned 44% of the wealth. The bourgeois as they saw it felt threatened by the proletariat class which were restful and demanded better treatment and equality. By the 1760’s the elite classes found a new way to control and boost their power, in which they used the” language of liberty and equality, which could unite just enough whites to fight a revolution against England, without ending either slavery or inequality. 

Imperialism in essence created social classes which consisted of the upper and lower classes with strict divisions and the middle class was conjured up as a buffer zone between the upper and lower classes. Imperialism uses every object in its disposable to keep the elite status and at the same time gave enough concessions that there won’t be popular revolt.” The continental congress which governed the colonies through the war was dominated by rich men, linked together by factions and compacts by business and family connections” (Zinn 63). According to Zinn, the armed white population had to be wooed to fight the revolution. The revolution appealed to the ruling elite by making them more secure against internal trouble. Carl Degler says “No new social class came to power through the door of the revolution. The men who engineered the revolt were largely members of the colonial ruling class” (Zinn 65). John Hancock was prosperous Boston merchant, George Washington was the riches man in America, and Benjamin Franklin was a wealthy printer. As we see men behind the revolution are the socially elite, and not the common person.

The ruling elite which enjoyed prosperity under British rule were ready to secede and dealer independence strictly on the basis of expanding economic interest and to gain control of more resources. The revolution and the declaration of independence set forth the motion of a centralized government, with a constitution that guarantees freedom liberty equality and property to all citizens. The amendments that laid the foundation of the new nation, strengthened by the Bill of Rights were widely accepted and gave the necessary support to build the new nation. The pleasantries ended there in which the congress enacted laws that abridg freedom as stated in (Zinn 76). The constitution in fact was not there to guarantee freedom, but rather guarantee the legitimacy of the government. The most notable feature was the power to tax which was strictly enforced, while other amendments guaranteeing freedom were taken lightly. “ They(founding Fathers) did not want an equal balance between slaves and masters, property less and property holders, Indians and white”(Zinn 77).

The idea of a stable central government appealed too many, the middle class which broadly supported a strong central government to enact laws, and impose tariffs on foreign products to protect the price of locally made goods. A stable government as Zinn states “serves the interest of the ruling elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle income workers and farmers, to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make the basis of support are buffers against the blacks, the Indians, and the very poor whites.

The constitution enabled democracy in the same way it works today. The nation then and now is divided between the extremely wealthy, the struggling middle class, and the poor. But being socially and economically polarized it creates a buffer zone for the wealthy. The middle classes though involved in the democratic government do not posses the time or effort to usher in significant changes. The same tactic is used during the governmental policy post revolution and in present day America. The middle class now and then are polarized in society. The socio economic boundaries are becoming more evident and the division of the classes is becoming more and more apparent. The wealthy elite gives enough to the people to stay appeased, but not enough to threaten the status quo.  

Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. Abridged Teaching

Edition. 1st Ed. The New York Press, New York, 2003. Print.  

Foner, Eric. Give Me Liberty! New York: W.W. Norton &, 2009. Print.

Declaration of Independence (http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/declaration.html)