By Rick Rojas
Nashville - The Three-Fifths Compromise, (click here) 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.
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 — remarks that were rebuked by critics, including Black colleagues, as insulting and demeaning.
“By limiting the number of population in the count,” the state representative, Justin Lafferty, a Republican from Knoxville, said on the House floor, participants in the Constitutional Convention “specifically limited the number of representatives that would be available in the slaveholding states, and they did it for the purpose of ending slavery — well before Abraham Lincoln, well before the Civil War.”...
Justin Lafferty went on to explain away the idea of a Five-Third slave population count in order to secure US Representatives to the US House was a racist act; by stating it lead to the end of slavery. Well, if that were the case, it sure took a long time to make the switch in the USA from slave to citizen.
The assault on voting rights needs to be seen for what it is, a power grab that ELIMINATES the rights of minorities by OBSTRUCTING voting opportunity.
The Fourteenth Amendment originally passed July 9, 1868.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
However, slavery was illegal in the thirteen original colonies in 1776. This is a really good analysis of the Thirteenth Amendment and slavery in general when it came to the rights of citizens.
By Jamal Greene and Jennifer Mason McAward
Slavery is America’s original sin. (click here) Despite the bold commitment to equality in the Declaration of Independence, slavery was legal in all of the thirteen colonies in 1776. By the start of the Civil War, four million people, nearly all of African descent, were held as slaves in 15 southern and border states. Slaves represented one-eighth of the U.S. population in 1860....
The 15th Amendment to the US Constitution reiterates the rights of all citizens.
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
These three Amendments to the USA Constitution are the framework to end slavery in the USA. Why is it today, there is so much racism in our society and government?
"... previous condition of servitude" may be grounds to end the obstruction of former prisoners to vote. Being incarcerated and the definition as "servitude" was defined clearly in the 13th Amendment. The words are clearly written to make exceptions to incarceration as "...except as a punishment for crime...." There is a clear understanding that incarceration is defined in the US Constitution as involuntary servitude. Therefore the words in the 15th Amendment are even more clear when realizing the constitutional language of servitude. When prisoners are released from incarceration for any reason they are no longer in involuntary servitude and any previous servitude is not to abridge their right to vote.
There isn't anything difficult about this. The day prisoners walk out of prison or jail a free person, they have the right to vote. PERIOD!
The words of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendment to the USA Constitution is clear. There is nothing to be in the way of voting, except time in incarceration. But, once that incarceration ends there is nothing that should obstruct their return to full citizen rights, including voting.
Prison is used as a financial tool for the states, including that once a prisoner has served his or her time there are still bills to pay and until those bills are paid, there is no return to full citizen rights. That is unconstitutional. The use of prisons as a means of raising monies to the state's treasury has to end, especially, where it prevents the return of voting rights.
When a judge hands down a sentence, there are fines to be paid. There is no order by any judge to assign the cost of prison to the prisoners and their families. There should never be any such assignment by a judge because it is unconstitutional to assign the cost of incarceration that prevents voting rights.
