The Rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise

The Rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise

Elation and sorrow. There is an amazing photograph taken of an elderly African-American lady. It’s one a.m. or so on November 5, 2008, hours after the election of Barack Obama. This lady, in her 80s if photos can tell age, can’t keep her emotions in check. She joins the hundreds of thousands of revelers throughout the country who have taken to the streets. In this lady’s case, she lives in Washington, D.C. and she’s made her way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
     She’s not alone. The scene outside the President’s House is astounding. The Avenue has been blocked off, not by police or by construction, but by people. A human wave of euphoria. The revelers are chanting: “Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey hey, goodbye.”
     This lady, judging by the photograph, is not chanting. She’s crying. It’s hard to chant and cry at the same time.
     Like most of us, she probably never thought she’d see an African-American ascend to the White House. Unlike most of us, she’s crying tears of a particular history. What lurks there, in those tears, in her past?
     I look at the photograph of this woman and her tears and I think about the Three-fifths Compromise. In 1787, during the Philadelphia Convention that would move this country from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, the delegations considered what to do with the existing slave population. How do you count slaves? Do slaves even count?
     The question wasn’t about voting rights. Slaves held no rights. Slaves couldn’t vote. The question was one of representation. The South, and other institutions of the slaveocracy, wanted the slaves counted in full numbers. Those totals would increase the pro-slave representatives in the congress. Those opposed to slavery didn’t want the slaves counted. Only free black men.
     Not free black women, as we all know. But that’s another story for another time.
     The Three-fifths Compromise, in which three of every five slaves would be included in the census, grew out of this impasse.
     The Three-fifths rule held sway until the end of the Civil War. The 13th Amendment ended the Three-fifths rule. In theory. Jim Crow laws gave the Three-fifths rule domineering power until the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
     As I look at the photograph of the elderly African-American woman in front of the White House, I believe she’s crying Three-fifths tears. To reduce a person to three-fifths is to cut off the knees, so the person can’t walk. Or to lop off the head, so the person can’t think, or talk, or vote. In France, they gave the lopping off of the head a name. The guillotine.
     The elation in electing Barack and Michelle Obama to the White House cannot be discounted or dismissed. But behind the euphoria lurks disease. For Barack Obama to become president – and remember that over 46 percent of the voting republic voted against him – consider what it took. An economic crisis. Two wars in two different countries, and the nation building that goes along with both. A president who has deracinated the constitution. A Republican presidential campaign that sputtered and creaked. A Democratic campaign that brought in unfathomable amounts of money and brilliantly navigated damage control.
     If any of these characteristics had gone in the other direction, this country would have elected the Republican status quo. It took a combination of crises, plus political perfection from the Democrats, and political defect from the Republicans, for voters to choose Obama. And don’t fool yourself. The election, from the perspective of the popular vote, was tight. A little over 6 percent. This should have been in the neighborhood of Nixon defeating McGovern by a smidgen over 23 percent or Johnson defeating Goldwater by a smidgen under 23 percent.
     Instead, the Obama victory over McCain ranks in between George Bush’s defeat of Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton’s defeat of George Bush. Bill Clinton defeated George Bush by 5.3 percent.
     Flips those numbers and you get 3.5. Those numbers, or three-fifths, calls to mind another photograph. This one taken on Wednesday the 5th, midday. The photo shows the backside of a couple. The scene is a hallway in San Francisco’s city hall. This couple, two women dressed in wedding gowns, has just been told by a clerk that they don’t have the legal right to marry. A dejected Mayor Gavin Newsom has just held a press conference. “This city is no longer marrying people,” he’s just said.
     The city hall clerk has told the couple that they still have the right to a civil union. A kind of Three-fifths Compromise if ever there was one. By the way, in places like Florida and Arizona, even that has been taken away of the election of 2008.
     In the photograph, the women have their shoulders hunched. Again, the photograph is of their backside. One woman is comforting the other, with a hand on a shoulder. The other woman has a hand held up to her eyes. Why a hand to her eyes? She’s sobbing. She’s wiping away Three-fifths tears.
     November 4, 2008, with the election of Barack Obama, was an ecstatic day for everyone who has struggled for civil rights. November 4, 2008 was also a black day for everyone who has struggled for human rights. What’s clear is that the old slaveocracy has become the new theocracy. Listen to Reverend James Garlow in San Diego: “It was a great victory,” concerning the passing of Prop 8 in California. “We saw the people just rise up.”
     Listen to Reverend Joel Hunter in Florida: “There is enough of the population that is alarmed at the general breakdown of the family. What we’ve seen in this election is an attempt to take back our families.”
     Both reverends are wrong. What we’ve seen in this election – from California and Prop 8 to Arkansas and the passage of a measure intended to ban gays from adopting children to Florida and the gay marriage ban that passed by remarkable totals, 62 percent voting for it, 38 percent voting against – is the rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise.
     As the 1787 Three-fifths Compromise cut off the feet, or the heads, of the slave population, the 2008 Three-fifths Compromise cuts off the hands of the gay population. Without fingers, there are no wedding bands.

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The Gonzo Journalism of Brian Josepher

The Rebirth of the Three-fifths Compromise