Part 6 of 13
On a piece of ground in your home town
“How’s this Gus?”
“Better.”
“The thirty Thousand -”
“Johnny,” interrupted Gus, “that 30,000 we've been kicking around.”
“Yes.”
“We had a census in 1860, just like the Constitution says.”
“We did.”
“And that census said we had over 30 million people.”
“True Yank.”
“So what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Gus offered, “30 million divided by 30,000 is kind of easy math.”
“It is.”
“So it ciphers to 1,000 federal districts.”
“Yes.”
“So that’s 1,000 federal Representatives in 1860.”
“True, but not real.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Usurpation.”
“Theft?”
“Yes, in the form of stolen representation Gus: Congress stopped obeying the Constitution.”
“Couldn’t follow orders ‘eh?”
“You got it.”
“How many Reps were there in 1860 Johnny?”
“There were 241 Gus.”
“And four million slaves.”
“True.”
“So using the three fifths clause, slaves would have equaled 2.4 million free people.”
“Yes.”
“Which meant a bunch of Representatives representing slaves.”
“There would have been 80.”
“That’s a lot Johnny.”
“It caused the war Gus.”
“The issue of slavery?”
“The issue of constitutional representation of slaves …”
Next Up: Thursday 4 August and a 2020, Defining a Conservative-Liberal Via John Kass and Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune.
Posted by Bryan W. Brickner