In his 1925 book, Mein Kampf, Hitler talks about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would think that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Hitler called it the “big lie.”
Once again, thank God for giving us Frederick Douglass and his literary legacy to defeat the bald-faced lies and propaganda of the Communist-Left.
In order to discredit the Founding Fathers, badmouth the U.S Constitution and create racial strife, Marxist-Liberals manipulate the true meaning of the three-fifths compromise. As a graduate of a historically Black university, Alabama A&M, I was taught to believe, by my Liberal history professor, the Founding Fathers gave us slavery in the U.S. Constitution because of the three-fifths clause — declaring Blacks were “three-fifths” of a human being.
Even today, Marxist-Liberals are still telling this lie and new ones. It is no wonder that Black Lives Matter pushes an anti-Constitution agenda. Like myself, these young people have been trained to accept the “three-fifths colossal lie” ─ the narrative that the three-fifths compromise is about Blacks being three-fifths of a human being. By leveraging Douglass’ quote regarding the three-fifths clause, I have been successful in changing the thinking of many BLM members. Wake-up Conservatives! Frederick Douglass-ISM is the answer for crushing Marxism.
The three-fifths clause reads:
“Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included in this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, add excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons…”
(Article 1, Section 2.3)
It was Frederick Douglass who provided clarity on this issue and turned my thinking right-side up. In a speech delivered in Glasgow, Scotland, on March 26, 1860, Douglass explained the true meaning of the three-fifths compromise:
“It is a downright disability laid upon the slaveholding States; one which deprives those States of two-fifths of their natural basis of representation. A black man in a free State is worth just two-fifths more than a black man in a slave State, as a basis of political power under the Constitution. Therefore, instead of encouraging slavery, the Constitution encourages freedom by giving an increase of “two-fifths” of political power to free over slave States. So much for the three-fifths clause; taking it at its worst, it still leads to freedom, not to slavery; for be it remembered that the Constitution nowhere forbids a coloured man to vote.”
The three-fifths clause was written for the sole purpose of limiting congressional representation to the slave states. You may recall that according to the Constitution, for every 30,000 residents in a state, that state would receive one representative to Congress. With 4 million Blacks in captivity in the south, the slave states wanted to count each slave as one vote, which would have given them a huge pro-slavery majority in Congress. Rejecting their demand, the Northern free states argued that no slave would be counted as a “full vote” as long as that person was a slave.
An agreement was reached in that 50,000 slaves rather than 30,000 slaves would equal one congressional representation. In other words, the three-fifths compromise denied the slave states additional pro-slavery congressional representation.
Marxist-Liberals have no answer for Frederick Douglass’ liberty message, which is why, Douglass-ISM is, by far, the most effective liberty message to defeat the lies and false rhetoric of Marxism.
A former member of President Trump’s Coalition Advisory Board, KCarl Smith is the President and CEO of KCarl Consulting Group, empowering freedom advocates with the confidence, knowledge and skills to trump the race card. His column appears every Thursday in 1819 News. To contact KCarl or request him for a speaking engagement go to http://kcarlinc.com/bookingsandfees . The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to Commentary@1819News.com.
