Lawsuit Claims Obama Can't Be President Because He's Black. Seriously.

[Rev. Rye]

We also have the 3/5ths rule - where black people are not consider a whole person, but merely 3/5ths of a person. A slave owner could use his slaves as an extra vote for whoever the slave owner wanted to vote for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Fifths_Compromise

One drop of black blood makes you 3/5ths of a person.

Technically, it's better to use "had" for this one; while the effects of the "one drop rule" are still felt, the 3/5 compromise is a relic of the days of slavery that ceased to be relevant after the passage of the 13th amendment.

Here's the thing: during the drafting of our constitution, there was some debate as to who counted towards the population; this was due to the fact that there was to be a strict proportion of 1 representative per 30,000 people. There was some conflict: Abolitionists didn't want slaves to be counted, as it just gave more power to the slave states. Less extreme northeners didn't see the point in including slaves, since they didn't have a vote anyway. Southerners, however, wanted to count them, so that they had political power. In the end, they decided on having them count as 3/5 of a person. As a result, until the election of Lincoln, the South dominated Congress, and their peculiar institution was preserved.

And I'd like to conclude with a reading:

Just to the left, and not very far away, were the Triple Demons of Compromise—one tall and thin, one short and fat, and the third exactly like the other two. As always, they moved in ominous circles, for if one said "here," the other said "there," and the third agreed perfectly with both of them. And, since they always settled their differences by doing what none of them really wanted, they rarely got anywhere at all—and neither did anyone they met.