One of the most misunderstood clauses in the United States Constitution is found in Article

1, Section 2.

Representation should be a portion among the states by adding to the whole number of three

persons, three-fists of all other persons.

Known as the three-fists compromise, it raises an obvious question.

How could the Fandom Fathers who endorsed the idea that all men are created equal also

endorsed the idea that some men aren't?

In 2013, James Wagner, president of Emory University, answered the question this way.

The three-fists compromise was an example of difficult but necessary political bargaining.

Without it, Wagner argued that all of them in southern states would never have agreed

to form a single union.

No three-fists compromise?

No United States of America.

Many people including 31 members of his own faculty vehemently disagreed.

Wagner, the faculty member suggested, was excusing the inexcusable.

They signed an open letter stating that the three-fists compromise was an insult to the

descendants of slaves and an example of racial denigration.

So who's right?

Let's look at the text again.

This is, shall be a portion among the states by adding to the whole number of three persons,

three-fists of all other persons.

Note that the Constitution does not say that a slave is not a person.

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