Glenn Beck Misrepresents The History Of The 3/5 Compromise To Fit His Racist Agenda
It’s been a while since Glenn Beck blew me away with his wisdom and expert historical analysis of America, but thankfully, he has done it again.
Yes it is true that it was the South who lobbied for the 3/5 compromise because it would give the Southern states more representation in Congress, that is not the point. In order to see Beck’s ignorance in all its glory, we need to break down Beck’s history lesson.
Caller:
I’ve noticed 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.
Beck interrupts:
Hang on just a second…Tell me about the 3/5 clause in the Constitution. Help me out on that.
Later, Beck asks:
Do you know who wanted slaves to be counted as a full person?…Slave owners.
Beck is incorrect when he says slave owners wanted to count a slave as a full person because with the recognition of being a full person would come the right to vote, and that was something the South did not want.
Beck went on to preach about the 3/5 compromise, and tell all his listeners the same stuff that they should have already learned in their 9th grade History class, but he added his own little racist flare by making the South out to be the ones that were for the equal rights of African Americans. All the while, Beck never once discusses the fact that the caller was, in fact, correct when he said that our Founding Fathers did not want to recognize his people as full human beings.
The conversation continued on with Beck trying to sound smart, but really he just ended up contradicting himself.
Beck sarcastically says:
Think of how evil that is (trying to point out that slave owners were not evil because they were the ones who wanted slaves to be recognized as whole human beings) you’re a slave owner and you want to recognize them as a whole human being.
Slave owners did not want slaves to be recognized as whole human beings. Slave owners wanted slaves to be recognized as property, but still get the political benefits that came along with counting them as part of the population. Beck himself even admits that the South looked at slaves as property at the end of the clip.
Think about it Beck, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t give your racist brethren (slave owners) credit for wanting slaves to be counted as whole human beings, and in the same conversation say that slave owners wanted slaves to be looked at as property.
Keep in mind one thing, it was Beck who brought up the 3/5 compromise, not the caller. This was just another example of Beck looking stupid while trying to sound smart.
Beck simply out debated himself.
