Ezekiel Edwards

History Repeats Itself

The Census Bureau's application of the "usual residence" rule for inmates (see my last entry titled "The Census Bureau must sharpen its senses") rings an ominous historical bell, striking a chord that sounds very familiar to one struck over 200 years ago at the Constitutional Convention. In 1787, northern and southern states were at a crossroads regarding how slaves should be counted by the census for the purpose of both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of members of the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Somewhat ironically, northern states did not want slaves counted at all (thereby preserving the north's superior strength), whereas southern states wanted slaves counted as whole persons in order to increase its electoral votes and presence in the House. The two sides arrived at a predictably dehumanizing agreement: each slave, none of whom could vote, would be counted by the census as three-fifths of a person. This gave the South disproportionate political power (though also more taxes), but still left the North with a slightly greater percentage of congressional seats.

In other words, America was using an entire segment of its population --- defined by its race, prohibited from voting, held only by force --- to provide essential political support to white politicians in less populated regions, politicians whose interests flowed fiercely and treacherously against the very segment of people on whom they were so dependent. Sound vaguely familiar?

Even if the human-being-as-a-fraction-of-a-human-being compromise differs drastically on its face from the Census Bureau's seemingly benign implementation of the race-neutral "usual residence" rule, the similarities in their severe anti-egalitarian consequences should not be overlooked. If our society today considers the outcome of the three-fifths compromise unconscionable (let alone, obviously, the compromise itself), we should consider the similarly undemocratic ramifications of the current "usual residence" rule intolerable as well.

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Posted at 7:00 AM, Feb 16, 2006 in Civil Rights | Criminal Justice | Democracy
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