I don’t think an audiophile forum is the place to get involved in these very divided political discussions. Especially today. Which is sad.
But, as someone who has studied Constitutional history, and yes, even read the Federalist Papers, let’s clear up something here that was referenced; The 3/5ths clause.
Why was this done, well, if you hear some today, they actually think that was because the framers only believed the slaves were less than a whole person. And that is completely wrong.
The southern slave state representatives wanted to count their slaves as a whole ‘person’ and included in their total population. Keep in mind, in those large plantation areas, the non-slave population was smaller in comparison to the northern states. Why would they do that? Well, because that would mean greater representation in the House of Representatives, and their Congressman would have more power in numbers. On the other hand, the northern non-slave state representatives did not not want the southern slave states to include their slaves population at all. Why? Because they did not feel the slave count should increase their representation in the House of Representatives, at all. And thus have more power, ‘on the backs’ of their slaves.
The Northern representatives wanted the southern slave states to be less powerful by not including their slave population at all, as they could then have a better chance of outlawing slavery in the future per federal law in Congress.
Now, the compromise. Neither was going to agree to either sides requests/demands, thus the ‘3/5’ clause was finally adopted in order to get the Constitution out to the states for ratification. The northern reps decided they would deal with it afterwards. Well, we did, but not they way it was hoped.
The southern representatives, yes, the slave holding states, actually ‘won’ on this 3/5ths verbiage adopted, as it gave them more power in the House vs what the northern representatives wanted them to have. But, it was still a compromise.
This had nothing to do with the value of slaves as individual people. It’s interesting how the southern states must have at least valued them, in fact, they wanted to value them as ‘whole people’ in order to give them more power. But, they also didn’t fully achieve that by the 3/5ths clause either.