Defending the Constitution: The ‘Three-Fifths Compromise’ was not based on racism0

• CONSTITUTION
• March 29, 2021

If you assume that counting persons is the proper basis for congressional representation, it’s easy to see how one could misread the reduction for slaves and the exclusion of non-tax-paying Indians as expressions of racism. However, many, probably most, of the framers did not think counting persons was the proper basis for representation.