Justin Lafferty, Tennessee Lawmaker, Draws Fire for Three-Fifths Compromise Remarks - T... - 0 views
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The Three-Fifths Compromise, an agreement reached during the negotiations in 1787 to create the United States Constitution, found that, for the purposes of representation and taxation, only three-fifths of a state’s enslaved people would be counted toward its total population. It is regarded as one of the most racist deals among the states during the country’s founding.
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Yet in a speech in the Tennessee General Assembly on Tuesday, one representative defended the compromise, arguing that it was “a bitter, bitter pill” that was necessary to curtail the power of slaveholding states and that helped clear the way to ending slavery
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— remarks that were rebuked by critics, including Black colleagues, as insulting and demeaning
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