That isn't the lesson of the 3/5ths compromise: The founders were hashing out how each state would be represented by Congress. They decided each state would ha

That isn't the lesson of the 3/5ths compromise: The founders were hashing out how each state would be represented by Congress. They decided each state would have representation proportional to its population. The problem: some states had tons of slaves. Slaves weren't allowed to vote--that was never in question--but slave states still wanted them to be included in the population count to get more representation. Giving slave-owners more votes by counting their slaves fully would have been much worse, not better, for the slaves. (An irrelevant tangent, I know, but this historical event is always mentioned in the wrong context and I think the truth is more interesting.)