Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Nice Reminder

Power Line contains a piece on how history is not well remembered to the point that some of those historical facts we all know so well are not rooted in any fact. The examle used is Sec. State Rice, in praise of the US move toward democratization, that in the past, blacks counted only as 3/5 of a person. I had to be prodded, but Power Line is right, the 3/5's rule counted toward representation in Congress and it only applied to slaves. Free blacks counted as one, as did whites.

The count was a compromise between the North and the South. the North wanted slaves to count as 0 and the South wanted them to count as 1. Both for very obvious political reasons.

Wonder what history will be on the next revisionist rewrite?

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