A column this morning repeats the ridiculous canard that the three-fifths clause of the Constitution was "built on the assumption that each Black person was subhuman, three-fifths of one." washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
It was in fact an effort to reduce the power of the slave states by giving them less representation in the House and the Electoral College than they would have had if slaves counted the same as whites for congressional apportionment.
There's lots of bad stuff in the Constitution that supported slavery, but the three-fifths clause was actually an effort to undermine the institution. It shouldn't be treated as a statement about the life of a slave being worth only three-fifths of a white person.
