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Right wing revisionist history at work…not pretty.
CALLER: I notice you reference the founding fathers a lot, and to me it’s kind of offensive because most of those guys were slave owners, the Constitution that they wrote up — they didn’t even recognize my people as even human. [...]
Glenn BECK: That is a common misconception. … Do you know who wanted slaves to be counted as a full person? … Slave owners. … The reason why they wanted that is because of the balance of power. The South could control the numbers in Congress. Their representation would go through the roof. … That’s why, in the Constitution, African-Americans were deemed three-fifths people, because the Founders wanted to end slavery and they knew if the South could count slaves as full individuals you would never get the control to be able to abolish it.
Beck’s infatuation with the Founding Fathers as infallible demi-gods is both ignorant and infantile. The 3/5th compromise was nothing more than a means to balance legislative representation between the northern and southern states. For Beck to make the argument that the 3/5th compromise was the Founders’ way to eventually end slavery does nothing more than highlight why this guy is an ignoramus in love with his own stupidity.
ThingProgress:
This is another example of Beck distorting history to fit his contemporary agenda. Beck paints a picture of infallible Founders fighting evil Southerners who want to keep their slaves. The problem with this is, of course, is that many of the Founders were from the South and about half of the Constitution’s framers — including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — owned slaves.
Beck also distorts the motives of the Founders to whitewash their actions by suggesting that Northerners allowed the three-fifths rule purely as an eventual means to ending slavery. But his theory doesn’t explain why the Constitution prohibited outlawing the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years after ratification nor why it included a clause requiring runaway slaves be returned to their owners.
Beck has now lost 92 sponsors.
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Apparently Mr. Beck was absent from junior high school the day the history teacher covered the topic on the 3/5th Compromise.
If Beck is 3/5ths a fool what are the other 2/5ths made of?
Why would your junior high history teacher necessarily know more about it than Beck? We should ask Obama. Isn’t he a constitutional law professor?
What are you saying Tommy? You believe the North agreed to the 3/5th compromise as a way of ending slavery at some future time? Are you agreeing with Beck?
I don’t know enough to agree or disagree.
Come on Tommy! You can read about this stuff…and yes, most junior high teachers know more about the Constitution than Beck. This is an issue where it is almost comical to watch Beck. This is a man who has trouble telling the Declaration of Independence from the Constitution. He thinks the Articles of Confederation have something to do with the Civil War. Didn’t he dress as Thomas Paine on the cover of his book? In fact, wasn’t his book “inspired by Common Sense”? This is classic! Thomas Paine…an atheist! Thomas Paine…a man who was an early proponent of progressive taxation, minimum wage, and guaranteed public education. In typical Beck fashion he seems only to have read the cover of “Common Sense”. He goes through life blissfully unaware of how far away the facts really are. That this raving idiot can have as many as 10 million folks watching and listening to him is terrifying.
The larger issue here has nothing to do with what any of us believe the Founders were thinking when they agreed to the compromise. Since the flaw has been addressed and corrected, the argument is academic.
The larger issue is the attempted marginalization of Beck, an advocate for individual free will. The left charges “he lies”, but the supportive evidence seems weak. I would like to see a “just the facts ma’am” sort of list detailing the lies he’s told, with the factual truths as a line under each one.
10 million people may be fooled by a lack of facts, mainly because he appeals to a gut emotion. What he says “feels right” to them. But the same is true for Obama supporters. The facts demonstrated that he had insufficient qualifications for the presidency, but because his words resonated with the feelings of people who lacked access to those facts, he was elected. That group of people terrifies me much more than Beck’s 10 million. I can tune out Beck. The president establishes policies and regulations that affect my life in realtime.
The representatives from the Northern, smaller states did not want slaves to be counted at all in the population because it would give Southern states more representation in Congress. The Southern representatives wanted slaves to count fully for the same reason. The Three-Fifths Compromise had nothing whatsoever to do with the eventual abolition of slavery. It was a power struggle among the Constitutional delegates and nothing more. If nothing else, it demonstrated a near total lack of regard on both sides of the issue for enslaved Africans as humans.
Beck could try to learn all he wants about U.S. History, but since his perception is so skewed, he would fail the final exams. Something invariably goes wrong between input and conclusion with Beck.
And no one takes issue with the stupidity of the caller’s premise.
We should dismiss the Constitution because it was written by Slave Owners.
TN says: “We should dismiss the Constitution because it was written by Slave Owners.”
Is that your interpretation of the caller’s comments? If it is, then it is just silly.
Beck has no more authority on the subject than Joe Caller did. He only pretends to have it.
Yes, that is what I drew from the portion of his comment included here.
I’m not passing judgment on Beck’s or the caller’s knowledge. But the caller seems to infer that he shouldn’t consider the Constitution credible because it was drawn up by slave owners. That’s stupid.
TN, I think the caller’s point was that the Founding Father’s were not wholly deserving of the glorification we tend to put upon them and that maybe they shouldn’t be held up as a standard of American virtuousness.
Then I would disagree with that point.
TN, explain the virtuousness of relegating an entire segment of the population to a category that was little better than cattle. Explain the virtuousness of a group that had the power to end the institution of slavery and chose not to. Where is the virtue in crowing about liberty when Africans were kept as property, bred like cattle and whipped like dogs?
I’ll tell you where it isn’t. It isn’t suggested, hinted, implied or even buried in the Three-Fifths Compromise.
As usual, you take issue with something that was not said. Good luck with that.