USA 250th: Why are they LYING about the Three-Fifths Compromise?

They told generations of students a simple LIE about the Three-Fifths Compromise: that it proved the founders believed a Black person was only “three-fifths” human. We think that story leaves out the real engine underneath the debate: political power. If representation in the US House rises with population, then whoever controls the population count controls the votes that shape the nation.

Ken Mercer walks through the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the clash between northern states and southern slave states over whether enslaved people would be counted for representation. The key question is blunt: why would slaveholding states demand to count 100% of enslaved people for seats in Congress while denying them rights like voting, property, education, and freedom of labor? Our argument is that full counting would have handed slaveholders a bigger block of power to protect slavery, block abolition, and push expansion.

We also explore overlooked anti-slavery momentum in early America, including northern states that moved toward abolition and the influence of the Great Awakening. Along the way we talk about John Jay and early abolition organizing, and why competing religious narratives shaped the public fight over slavery.

We close by connecting the history to a present reality that should stop you cold: modern slavery and human trafficking still trap tens of millions of people worldwide. 

If this conversation sharpened your view of the US Constitution, civic education, and the true purpose of the Three-Fifths Compromise, subscribe, share the episode, and leave a review. What part of this history were you never taught?

• Why some politicians and experts frame the Three-Fifths Compromise as a statement of human value
• How House representation by population turns into real legislative power
• Why slave states pushed to count 100% of enslaved people for seats
• Northern state resistance and the fear of a pro-slavery supermajority
• early abolition in multiple northern states and how that history gets skipped
• The Great Awakening and competing religious views on slavery
• John Jay’s anti-slavery efforts in New York
• What the 60% compromise changed and why it mattered for expansion
• The link we draw between past slavery and modern slavery today

For this session, Ken Mercer asks you to pray for those young men and women of California who have great American values and love America.  Next time it could be your state!

Transcript

Why Leaders Mislead On Civics

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Why would certain members of the United States Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives lie to us about the purpose of our Constitution and the three-fifths compromise? Why do they want to teach our children that our family and followers were on a bunch of racists? They consider the black man only wear three-fifths of a white man. But these elected officials know that's that's just a stinking lie. They're right there in Washington, D.C. They studied the Constitution, they're in the halls of Congress, they know what the debates were. And why we have a three-fifths compromise, especially today in the 250th anniversary of our nation, where we should be uniting our country. And remember that the pledge says indivisible, meaning that our way of life, our American culture, our beliefs, our values, the they make us indivisible. Why are certain politicians lying, lying to you and me and our children about the true purpose of the three-fifths compromise in our Constitution?

Representation Means Power In Congress

SPEAKER_00 1:12

If you heard my session on the Great Compromise, you know that every state has how many senators? Two United States senators, and every state is guaranteed at least how many members in the House? One. But you have more members if you have greater population. And the greater representation you have, it's more power. Like a mathematical equation. You have more representative, you have more power. And that was the issue of the three-fifths compromise. Again, it's based on your power. The convention was 1787. There were two constitutional conventions. 1787 was the develop our basic constitution. We took our articles of Confederation, we kind of threw those out and wrote our own constitution after studying the constitutions of many other democracies before us. Two years later, 1789, we had a second constitution convention. The concern was in 1987, we built too strong of a federal government. What about individual and state rights? So two years later, we met again and had a second convention, which created our bill of what? Bill of hopefully you said Bill of Rights. That's a different podcast, different YouTube program, but right now we're talking about 1787, specifically focused on the three-fifth compromise. And there was a dispute that rose up. The northern states and the southern states went out and said, Well, let's get a count of our people, and again our representation by population, and all of a sudden the southern states came back to these huge numbers. The northern states, the anti-slavery states, were shocked when suddenly this the southern states wanted to count 100% of their slaves for representation. And again, more representation meant greater power. Let me ask you this: why would the slave states want to count 100% of their slaves? I love to begin with questions. So you think the slave states wanted to count 100% of slaves to give them more representation and power of the house so they could abol abolish slavery? Did the southern slave states want more representation and power of the house so they could provide free education for the children of all slaves? Learn how to read and write. Did the slave owners want more power and representation in the house so they could immediately provide slaves the the right to own property and the right to vote? Or did the southern slave states want to count 100% of all slaves because they wanted the power to block block any attempt to abolish slavery, to keep slavery around for another hundred plus years and to even expand slavery all the way to the coast of the Pacific Ocean? Great questions. Again, why do the sl southern slave states want more power representation by counting 100% of slaves? Was it A, so they could quickly abolish slavery? B provide education for the children of slaves, C, provide slaves the the right to vote and own property, or D. Because they want to block any attempt to ever abolish slavery and even had the votes to expand slavery. I'm gonna prove to you the reason the Northerners did not want to count 100% is because they didn't want the southern slave state to have more power. You know, something we're not told.

Early Abolition And The Great Awakening

SPEAKER_00 4:32

The circumstances of 1787, slavery was a huge issue, a huge issue. And somewhere our experts have missed the fact that at our convention in 1787 we already had five states who had abolished slavery. Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut had abolished slavery. If in a few years two more states, New Jersey and New York would also have laws to abolish slavery. This is so huge because by the early 1800s, by 1804, half our states, all the northern states, had already abolished human slavery. We're not told that. Some states even had suffrage, meaning black males had the right to vote in those states. Somehow, all those things are being skipped. And I gotta tell you, there's a a group, and I need to do a different program just on them called the the New Christians of the Great Awakening. There were several waves, at least three waves of the Great Awakening, and these new Christians came out there. What happened in 1776 at that time, three things, at least three things about slavery. Number one, human slavery was already over 8,000 years old. Number two, not one country, not one nation in the entire world had abolished human slavery. And number three, and this is sad, that a minimum 95% of all slaves that came across the Atlantic Ocean, 95% were kidnapped and forced, sold into slavery by fellow African tribes. Don't misunderstand me. I'm very strong and I'm the opposition. I call human slavery EDS, evil, d demonic, S satanic. Well, Mr. Mercer, that's pretty strong. Well, that's how bad I feel about slavery then, as I do about slavery right now. In my book Slavery 101, I talk about the untold history, true story of new cruciers of the Great Awakening, how they are the ones who abolished human slavery. They started a movement that impacted America, and it actually impacted Europe, Great Britain in particular. And also in there are groups in America and Great Britain to abolish slavery. John Jay used to be a question, who was the first Supreme Court Justice, Chief Justice? That was John Jay. Well, John Jay also created the first Society for Abolition of Slavery in the state of New York. Did you know that? And John Jay was later on the governor of New York who signed a bill to gradually abolish slavery in his state. In 1804, we're not told those things about our founding fathers, though we're told they're all races because they considered a black man to be only worth three-fifths of a white man. But what is the proverbial rest of the story? These new Christians, the Great Awakening, we don't care if the whole world's doing slavery. We don't care that not one country in the world has abolished human slavery. God has told us that slavery is a sin, and we must confront that sin. These people of the Great Awakening changed everything. By the way, before your cards and letters and emails come in, yes, it is true there were other so-called Christians. The biggest opposition to these new Christians who were pro-freedom, the media even back then would call them anti-slavery. I'd rather call them pro-freedom. But even back then the media would attack them. And because the slave churches were saying, quote, slavery is part of God's plan, end of quote. Can you believe that? Other so-called Christians were doing that, and they did not like these new Christians of the Great Awakening, who again said, We don't care that it's 8,000 years old. We don't care that not one country in the world has abolished it. God has told us that human slavery is a sin.

What The Three-Fifths Deal Changed

SPEAKER_00 8:25

So what came back that the big problem about population, the the huge arguments, again the southern slave states wanted to count 100% of the slaves. And you can see the argument saying, wait a minute, your slaves, they have zero rights. They don't have the right to vote to own property. They don't have any freedoms whatsoever. They don't have the right to work and enjoy the fruits of their labor. Their children do not have the right to learn how to read and write and do math, they could be arrested. It's illegal for the children of slaves or slaves to learn how to read and write. But the slave states thought, well, we can better represent them. And that was the fight of the three-fifths compromise. Some people probably want to count zero. We should count no slaves at all, but our country was ready to break apart. Do we count zero percent, a hundred percent, and three-fifths compromise was we're gonna count sixty percent, three-fifths of every slave. Now, mathematically, that still increased the power of the U.S. House of the slave owners by thirty to thirty-five percent. Counting three-fifths increased the power the thirty to thirty-five percent. If they were being allowed to count one hundred percent instead of sixty percent of the slaves, they would have had a supermajority in the House. They could have blocked any attempt to abolish slavery, which is their goal, for the next one hundred years, and they could have moved to expand slavery all the way to this new place called California on the West Coast. That was the real purpose of the three-fifths compromise. And when people, especially these experts or politicians, tried to divide us, and they divide us with a lie. The lie of the three-fifths compromise, it was never, never a racist statement. And let me end with that. I called the lie of the three-fifths compromise by call saying the art of our founding fathers were racist because they considered a black man only worth three-fifths of a white man. That is a lie. No, these are people who wanted to stop slavery, wanted to end slavery and stop the expansion of slavery and abolish slavery altogether. These are people of the Great Awakening who said slavery is a sin. We want to confront that sin. And the reason they compromise on three-fifths is to keep our country together. But they did not want to count 100% of all slaves as some politicians and some university experts say, because that would have given the southern slave states more power. Again, more representation equals more power. And they could have kept slavery for another a hundred plus years, and furthermore, they would have the votes and the power to expand human slavery. So there you are, the proverbial rest of the story. I hope you enjoyed today's session. I know it was different. You can tell I'm passionate about it. In

Modern Slavery And A Final Challenge

SPEAKER_00 11:20

my book, I have my last chapter talks about how slavery is still around today. In the twenty-first century, there are right now, every night going to bed, there are at least forty million women, children, men who are slaves. And they're praying for a Moses for deliverer to come and save them. And maybe someone listening out there, maybe you'll be that Moses, that deliverer who will end human slavery, finally end it forever. Because right now we have at least 40 million people in the world every night. More slaves than any one point in time. Again, three famous compromise was not a racist statement. It was a statement by Christians of the Great Awakening influenced early Congress to limit the power of slaveholders. As always, if you enjoyed today's session, please hit the like button, subscribe. And today's shout-out was the state of California. Again, you cannot see it in the broadcast, but on YouTube, you can memorize Stanford, ask you to pray for those young men and women of California who have great American values and love America. They particularly need your encouragement and need our prayers. And I'd like to end by reminding us that my beliefs of the strength of America, it's always been our faith and our values coupled coupled with our worship. Throughout time, throughout history, that has always made us so powerful. And I look at the faith and values of these new Christians of the Great Awakening, their faith and values and their worship, how they were able to change early America to change England and eventually change the world. Please never forget. Never forget that in a place called the United States of America, in God we still we still trust. That's right. Right here in America, in God, we still trust. Thank you and blessings.