The War of North Rebellion: Re: Hal when you say that the district benefitted as a whole by

» Wrap10 - Re: Hal when you say that the district benefitted as a whole by

In response to message posted by FortBrooke1824:

Hal is right on the 3/5th clause. It was used to allocate seats in the House to the slave states, and also for allocating electoral votes. It was not actually broken down by individual slave owners. One person still only got one vote, whether he had no slaves or a thousand slaves. But, his state would gain extra votes in Congress, and also in national elections.

But I think the larger point you were making about the North is valid. The 3/5th clause was intended to help maintain the balance of power between the two sections at the national level. But in reality, it helped the South to dominate that balance of power for most of the years leading up to the war. This came to be a source of great resentment in the North.

It is often referred to as the War of Northern Aggression by some folks even today, but I don't think there's much question that many northerners at the time viewed it as a war of defense, in the larger sense of the word. They were protecting the Union, and all they felt it stood for, against an attempt to destroy it. That was how the collective North looked at it. I touched on this briefly in an article series about the three major war theaters.

-- posted by Wrap10