3 ms·

Are you by any chance seriously putting forth the 3/5s compromise as a positive outcome?

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
And what were the alternatives? Do something that gives the south too much power and slavery will soon be too deeply enshrined in federal law to be rid of. Count slaves as 0/5ths like the north wanted and the south won't ratify the constitution and you'll get two nations, one of which definitely won't be outlawing slavery. The past is full of situations where people needed to chart the least bad course through a sea of bad options and they wound up doing an ok job at that. It's easy to sit in an air conditioned ivory tower and cook up internet comments that shit on those people for not having modern morals but other than the internet points I don't know of any useful end that behavior serves.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Slavery isn’t an issue of “modern morals”. Any Black person in the 1700s could have told you that it was wrong. The fact that slaveholders disagreed doesn’t mean it was some unsolved moral conundrum.
- khuey 5y ago
  Slavery was too deeply enshrined in federal law to be rid of, and it was ultimately abolished via extralegal means (namely the Civil War).
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Remember who started the civil war? We had the civil was because the writing was on the wall for slavery. The south seceded because it seemed highly likely that slavery would be abolished through legal means.
tadfisher 5y ago
In a sense, it is, because otherwise the original Constitution may not have been ratified and a possible outcome would be the Balkanization of North America. In another, it justified and enshrined in foundational law the abhorrent practice of chattel slavery, and allowed the United States to form a strong centralized government capable of colonizing and subjugating the native people who were living there for thousands of years. These can both be true at the same time.
- kadoban 5y ago
  It's just a bizarre example of a compromise if you're looking for a positive example. At _very best_ it was a necessary evil, with a large emphasis on the "evil". There's a direct line from there to more slavery, the Civil War, a couple of centuries of mistreatment of a large portion of the American citizenry, internal strife, and the current clusterfuck of race relations and politics in America. Put against that there's the other option of "maybe there might have been one extra country".
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > Put against that there's the other option of "maybe there might have been one extra country". That 'extra country' would have all the things you describe, possibly without the check of the Free States on them to eventually apply pressure to get rid of slavery. There was even a possibility of improvement: was it Andrew Johnson that cut a deal to allow the slavers back into power?
    - kadoban 5y ago
      The "applying pressure" part was going to war. Not sure unioning up with slavers for ~a century, extending their influence, undermining the morality of your founding document, etc. can be judged to be worth it if you're just going to have to shoot them until they stop slaving anyway.
travisgriggs 5y ago
Which part of “I’m not advocating either position” and “thought experiment” led you to need to ask this? Did I put forth any praise of the actual 3/5’s compromise? The use of the 3/5s example (rather than some other less ludicrous compromise) if anything calls out the inanity of the thought experiment.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  "I'm not advocating either position" sounds like you are referring to abortion and gun rights. I didn't read it as applying to the 3/5th compromise itself.
- kadoban 5y ago
  If you say that wasn't your intent, then I believe you. Just so it's clear why I read it as intending to be positive: The rest of that paragraph is fairly grounded and with emphasis on the benefits. "No more fighting", "each side got something it wanted", etc. That's typically the kind of thing you emphasize when you're pro-compromise. I read the "not advocating either position" part as referring to gun rights and abortion.
smitty1e 5y ago
It is trivial to view the process of rejecting the scourge of slavery as binary, and reject the 1787 Constitution for its disgusting 3/5ths compromise. And yet: what if the course of history as it unfolded was roughly optimal?
- kadoban 5y ago
  > And yet: what if the course of history as it unfolded was roughly optimal? Sure, but what if it wasn't? It seems like there's a bias to viewing history where we judge _our_ outcome as the best one even if it had huge downsides. I don't see why we should assume the outcome we have is any better than average or why those decisions generally judged to be "necessary evil"s actually were necessary. They were only necessary to get exactly our outcome, there's nothing saying that it was actually good.
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    Look at any large-scale, peacetime organizational change. It ain't beanbag, even before beong as fraught as abolition. Those tearing down the Founders (looking at you, 1619 Project) need to have done more than point fingers and cast stones before being regarded seriously.
    - smitty1e 5y ago
      'even before being'

And what were the alternatives? Do something that gives the south too much power and slavery will soon be too deeply enshrined in federal law to be rid of. Count slaves as 0/5ths like the north wanted and the south won't ratify the constitution and you'll get two nations, one of which definitely won't be outlawing slavery. The past is full of situations where people needed to chart the least bad course through a sea of bad options and they wound up doing an ok job at that. It's easy to sit in an air conditioned ivory tower and cook up internet comments that shit on those people for not having modern morals but other than the internet points I don't know of any useful end that behavior serves.

jakelazaroff 5y ago
Slavery isn’t an issue of “modern morals”. Any Black person in the 1700s could have told you that it was wrong. The fact that slaveholders disagreed doesn’t mean it was some unsolved moral conundrum.
khuey 5y ago
Slavery was too deeply enshrined in federal law to be rid of, and it was ultimately abolished via extralegal means (namely the Civil War).
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  Remember who started the civil war? We had the civil was because the writing was on the wall for slavery. The south seceded because it seemed highly likely that slavery would be abolished through legal means.

tadfisher 5y ago

In a sense, it is, because otherwise the original Constitution may not have been ratified and a possible outcome would be the Balkanization of North America. In another, it justified and enshrined in foundational law the abhorrent practice of chattel slavery, and allowed the United States to form a strong centralized government capable of colonizing and subjugating the native people who were living there for thousands of years. These can both be true at the same time.

kadoban 5y ago
It's just a bizarre example of a compromise if you're looking for a positive example. At _very best_ it was a necessary evil, with a large emphasis on the "evil". There's a direct line from there to more slavery, the Civil War, a couple of centuries of mistreatment of a large portion of the American citizenry, internal strife, and the current clusterfuck of race relations and politics in America. Put against that there's the other option of "maybe there might have been one extra country".
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Put against that there's the other option of "maybe there might have been one extra country". That 'extra country' would have all the things you describe, possibly without the check of the Free States on them to eventually apply pressure to get rid of slavery. There was even a possibility of improvement: was it Andrew Johnson that cut a deal to allow the slavers back into power?
  - kadoban 5y ago
    The "applying pressure" part was going to war. Not sure unioning up with slavers for ~a century, extending their influence, undermining the morality of your founding document, etc. can be judged to be worth it if you're just going to have to shoot them until they stop slaving anyway.

travisgriggs 5y ago

Which part of “I’m not advocating either position” and “thought experiment” led you to need to ask this? Did I put forth any praise of the actual 3/5’s compromise? The use of the 3/5s example (rather than some other less ludicrous compromise) if anything calls out the inanity of the thought experiment.

leetcrew 5y ago
"I'm not advocating either position" sounds like you are referring to abortion and gun rights. I didn't read it as applying to the 3/5th compromise itself.
kadoban 5y ago
If you say that wasn't your intent, then I believe you. Just so it's clear why I read it as intending to be positive: The rest of that paragraph is fairly grounded and with emphasis on the benefits. "No more fighting", "each side got something it wanted", etc. That's typically the kind of thing you emphasize when you're pro-compromise. I read the "not advocating either position" part as referring to gun rights and abortion.

smitty1e 5y ago

It is trivial to view the process of rejecting the scourge of slavery as binary, and reject the 1787 Constitution for its disgusting 3/5ths compromise. And yet: what if the course of history as it unfolded was roughly optimal?

kadoban 5y ago
> And yet: what if the course of history as it unfolded was roughly optimal? Sure, but what if it wasn't? It seems like there's a bias to viewing history where we judge _our_ outcome as the best one even if it had huge downsides. I don't see why we should assume the outcome we have is any better than average or why those decisions generally judged to be "necessary evil"s actually were necessary. They were only necessary to get exactly our outcome, there's nothing saying that it was actually good.
- smitty1e 5y ago
  Look at any large-scale, peacetime organizational change. It ain't beanbag, even before beong as fraught as abolition. Those tearing down the Founders (looking at you, 1619 Project) need to have done more than point fingers and cast stones before being regarded seriously.
  - smitty1e 5y ago
    'even before being'