Slavery in the constitution and declaration of independence

It’s All About Your Rep
Forming America to a profitable and just nation over time has never been an easy matter to successfully handle. Personal morals and ethics were a big obstacle to deal with when our founding brothers drafted historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. When drafting up the Constitution at the constitutional convention the delegates were faced with many hard-hitting topics. One of these difficult topics that the constitutional convention underwent was slavery. The continental convention handled the issue of slavery by the three-fifths clause with reasons for proportional representation and temporarily resolving an unending dispute helping it be consistent with the underlying values of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America.
The continental convention dealt with the topic of slavery by the Three-Fifths Compromise. The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise that stated that a slave would count as three-fifths of a person in terms of both voting and proportional representation. It was called a compromise because it settled the unending arguments over power between the North and South. The north argued that a slave was a form of property, and because they were recognized as property there should not be any representation whatsoever for a slave regardless of how many there are in the states. The south argued just the opposite: that slaves should be counted as equal as whites, but only in the area of representation. However, the south predominantly did not see African American slaves as equal outside of strictly counting them as people for representation. They were still suppressed to vote for their delegates that represented his or her state. Also, they were not given as nearly as many rights as free white males were. Regardless, delegates from both sides did not want to even deal with slavery and wanted to put off solving the topic as long as possible. This compromise did not change the views of how the nation views slaves, this agreement was just to temporarily resolve the representation arguments between the north and the south.
The reasons for the continental convention accepted the Three-fifths Compromise were for proportional representation and temporarily resolving an unending dispute. The disagreement between the north and south heavily resided on these matters. For proportional representation, the south wanted slaves to count the same as a white for population tallies. Due to the amount of slaves that were owned in the south, if they were counted as equal to whites, the southern states would benefit greatly. The record of population in the south would be much higher causing the southern states to assume more political representatives. Alongside with more representatives, southern states would have more electoral votes in the Electoral College because the electoral votes are based on population. This in turn would help the southern states tremendously with passing or vetoing laws, keeping their states a “slave state”, and making the regulations benefit the south as much as possible. Aside from gaining more political power in the House of Representatives, taxation would fluctuate to an extent within each state because much like representation, taxation comes by the population a state has. In order for the north and south to agree, they compromised by saying that slaves shall be counted as 60% person, 40% property (in fraction form this would be three fifths thereby the name of the compromise). However ironically enough although the free white males in the south pushed for slaves to be counted as equal as themselves, the slaves were not allowed to vote nor have any voice in voting for representatives or laws. This clause did not give, lose, or even touch on the boundaries and rules of slavery within the states. However this clause was a temporary compromise the merely put off handling the ethicality of the whole concept of one person owning another and seeing them strictly as only property.
The three-fifths clause made slavery consistent with the underlying values of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America. Oddly enough, nowhere in the constitution (disregarding the amendments) does it use the word slavery or slave. For example, in Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution, it uses the term “importation persons” when talking about the slave trade, and when talking about slaves in Article 4, Section 2 it refers to such people as “person held to service or labor”. These words used in particular context helped the founding brothers get away with leaning a certain way with slavery. In the Declaration of Independence, one of the most famous lines in that document said “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” When Thomas Jefferson wrote these words, he was strictly speaking about free, white, males persons. Property was still the classification for slaves therefore by not recognizing slaves as the “people” the Declaration was referring to, though technicality both documents proceeded to be accurate. The three-fifths clause was the proof that slavery was not accounted for even by the time of the drafting of the constitution.
The continental convention handled the issue of slavery by the three-fifths clause that was backed by representation of states proportionally and temporarily putting off the topic helping it be consistent with the underlying values of the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of the United States of America. The south wanted blacks to count as one in term of population for political and economic purposes. The north did not want slaves to be counted as one so the south would not have a strong hold in the braches of government. Yet both saw slaves as merely property and not as an actual human being. Constitutionally slavery was not brought up so there was confusion in where the government stood in their eyes. Thus, the three-fifths clause allowed both the south and north to briefly resolve how slaves should count in terms of population.