WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s a claim that has surfaced and been debunked before, but Republican lawmakers in recent days have given it new voice: the notion that the clause in the Constitution counting slaves as three-fifths of a person actually was a step toward ending slavery.
The most recent example came from Tennessee state Rep. Justin Lafferty as part of a debate over whether educators should be restricted in how they teach about systemic racism in American history. His remarks sparked applause from the GOP-controlled House while shocking many Black lawmakers and activists.
This is what Lafferty, who represents Knoxville, said: “By limiting the number of population in the count, they specifically limited the number of representatives who would be available in the slave-holding states and they did it for the purpose of ending slavery. Well before Abraham Lincoln. Well before Civil War.”
And last month, Colorado Republican Rep. Ron Hanks said the so-called Three-Fifths Compromise “was not impugning anybody’s humanity.”
The argument has been around for years. In 2019, Oregon state Sen. Dennis Linthicum claimed that “the three-fifths vote was actually to eliminate the overwhelming influence the slave states would have in representative government.” Conservative commentator Glenn Beck made a similar argument in 2010.