[Lancey Howard]

Thank you. Yes, as soon as I posted I realized I had screwed up. The “3/5 of a person” was strictly for census.
But it was the North that reduced the personhood of a slave to 3/5, not the South.

FRegards,
LH

[MrB]

I believe the ever loved by leftists North
wanted “black people” to not be counted as people at all.

[trubolotta]

We should not miss the point that slaves were not allowed to vote but the south wanted them counted to increase representation and in essence, vote as their proxies. The opposing view was since they can’t vote, they can’t be counted.

The whole idea of “personhood” is nonsensical when the south considered them non-persons and the north said basically, if that is your view, non-persons can’t be represented.

It was a classic compromise where neither side got all of what it wanted, but yielded since the formation and survival of a nation was at stake.

[William Tell]

Lancey Howard said: "But it was the North that reduced the personhood of a slave to 3/5, not the South."

I would put it this way:

It was the North that reduced the representation of slave states and the South which reduced the personhood of slaves by owning them instead of setting them free as they had full power to do without loss of life. When the time came for the North to set slaves free it cost half a million lives.