657
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
657 points (100.0% liked)
politics
19090 readers
3718 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
It sure did shift power to the slave states. The Senate gives equal power to each state, regardless of population. That's why, as states were allowed to join the union, they were done for quite some time in pairs - one slave, one free - in order to maintain a balance in the Senate.
You're mixing two different things and not quite understanding history.
The House and the Senate are very different things, and together they add up to the electoral college.
The electoral college was created for one reason and one reason alone. To allow people to actually vote in a national election when the fastest way to get from one end of the country to the other was via footpath.
The Senate was actually a check on the power of the slave states, as was the 3/5ths compromise.
Although, the northern states were also slave states at the time the constitution was signed. People often forget that fact.
The problems with slavery were painfully obvious, even then, but rich white guys wanted to own people. This lead to even more problems as the North slowly banned slavery. But that's a different section in the history book.
I'm sorry, but you have this completely backwards.
Yes, I am aware of how the electoral college works, and what the House and Senate are. I have been voting since 1988. Specifically because the electoral college votes from a particular state include those granted by having two senators, low population states' popular vote carries more weight in electing a president (and vice president). I may have worded that badly before, I hope that was clearer.
The three-fifths compromise made it so that, for purposes of counting population, to decide how many representatives in the House a state had, every five slaves were to count as three persons. This gave the southern states a huge boost of power in the House - because slaves got counted to find out how many representatives they had, even though those slaves were in every other way property, with few rights, certainly not the right to vote in the elections for the reps their number served to create seats for.
Again, the fact that each state had two senators, and that those states were kept evenly split between slave and free states (or states which wanted to expand slavery and states which wanted to curtail or outlaw slavery) demonstrates how the balance of power in the senate was kept that way in order to avoid a conflict over the issue of slavery. Since states had different populations, and since much of the concentration of free people was concentrated in the northeast, the Senate (then as now) gives disproportionate power to (I mentioned this before) lower population and more rural states. Then, those states were largely southern slave states. Today, those states are largely rural conservative states.
Yes, of course, there were slaves in northern states, too, but far fewer, and many northern states were curtailing or outlawing slavery while the south was doing everything in its power not only to protect it in the south, but to expand it for all states.
Slavery was a divisive issue in the US from the very beginning, and the issue got kicked down the road many, many times before Lincoln was elected and the south seceded. Everything that happened at the federal level.
Again, you forget that every state was a slave state in 1780. There were agitators who wanted to end slavery, even in southern states, but none had actually achieved it when the constitution was signed.
The split of House and Senate was actually based on geography, as in which states had no defined western boarders.
The Founders called them small states and large states. The house was meant to appease large states, Which included New York and Pennsylvania.
The small states, got the Senate. Several of the small states had higher populations when the constitution was signed, but they knew it would shift out of their favor given enough time.
The line that the House was meant to appease Slave states is true only because New York and Pennsylvania were slave states at the time.
The 3/5ths compromise was thrown in to address this, but it isn't the red herring you think it was.
The electoral college was then added again, because it took months to get from one end of the country to the other, and there was a distinct chance that the winner of an election would be dead by the time the Georgia electors got to Washington in order to officially cast the vote. That's it. That's the full reason it exists.
The presidential election was in the fall, and the certification was in the spring. All because there were no roads up and down the East Coast. No rail lines, no anything.
You could take a ship, but there was a distinct risk of dying at sea.