BONUS: The Three-Fifths Compromise & Other Myths About the Constitutional Convention

Liam: 00:00:16

Hello and welcome to this bonus content for the latest episode of America, a history podcast.

Liam: 00:00:22

We recently published what was the Constitutional Convention?

Liam: 00:00:25

And I'm joined now by Emma Long and Frank Cogliano to discuss this a little bit more.

Liam: 00:00:31

Hi again to you both.

Frank Cogliano: 00:00:33

Hi there.

Emma Long: 00:00:34

Hello.

Liam: 00:00:35

Great for you to just hang on and do this for our lovely Patreon fans.

Liam: 00:00:40

So, Frank, I just wanted to.

Liam: 00:00:43

I didn't feel like this was appropriate for the main episode, but I did want to ask you.

Liam: 00:00:47

Been living in the UK for, like, 30 years now.

Liam: 00:00:51

I've been to Massachusetts.

Liam: 00:00:53

It's a lovely part of the 32.

Liam: 00:00:55

Wow.

Liam: 00:00:56

Now Massachusetts is such a nice part of the U.S.

Liam: 00:01:01

why just stay?

Emma Long: 00:01:05

Well, I would say Edinburgh is a very nice part of the UK as well.

Emma Long: 00:01:09

So it's not like I'm suffering.

Emma Long: 00:01:12

As listeners will know, those of you who are either academics or students, you know, academic jobs are tough to come by and you go where the work is.

Emma Long: 00:01:22

So I did.

Emma Long: 00:01:23

I came to the UK in: 1992

Emma Long: 00:01:25

I spent.

Emma Long: 00:01:26

I was in Southampton originally, and I came for what I thought was going to be a year, and one year turned into five down there.

Emma Long: 00:01:32

And then in 97, I got a job up here in Edinburgh and I've been here ever since.

Emma Long: 00:01:36

I have no regrets.

Emma Long: 00:01:37

I get back to the United States, including New England all the time.

Emma Long: 00:01:40

And New England will always kind of be, you know, have a special place in my heart.

Emma Long: 00:01:45

But the UK is not bad.

Liam: 00:01:49

Yeah, I guess Edinburgh's.

Liam: 00:01:51

If you're going to stay anywhere, Edinburgh is, I've heard, a very, very lovely part of the country.

Emma Long: 00:01:56

But yeah, I mean, the, the Edinburgh Festival is on right now, so Edinburgh's mobbed.

Emma Long: 00:02:01

But apart from that, yeah, Edinburgh's all right.

Liam: 00:02:05

Yeah.

Liam: 00:02:05

Yeah.

Liam: 00:02:06

No, I was, I was lucky enough to be greeted by some really hospitable family at Logan Airport when I, when I did fly into, into Massachusetts, who gave me a slightly long way round to Salem where I was staying.

Liam: 00:02:21

So I saw a few, like, little towns kind of going through there and there's obviously there.

Liam: 00:02:26

I thought before I visited Massachusetts, I thought it was a very sort of Hollywoodized kind of aesthetic in sort of the northeast of the sort of the New England town.

Liam: 00:02:36

But, like, that's real like that.

Liam: 00:02:40

You go through towns exactly like that.

Emma Long: 00:02:43

It's wicked awesome, Liam.

Emma Long: 00:02:44

And the people are wicked smart.

Emma Long: 00:02:46

It's the best.

Liam: 00:02:52

My wife would love that accent, by the way.

Liam: 00:02:55

She keeps telling me to go to New York for the accent.

Liam: 00:02:59

But, you know, I think as well, one of the great things about that part of the US is that you really sometimes, and Boston as well is like you, you feel like you're really stepping back in time sometimes to, you know, there's this real sort of preservation of, of history and this is really where a lot of like these sort of key moments of early U.S.

Liam: 00:03:19

history sort of happened.

Liam: 00:03:21

I say early U.S.

Liam: 00:03:22

history from, you know, revolution onwards.

Liam: 00:03:26

And I think if you, if you go to those parts of the country, you really kind of just get a sense of the history.

Liam: 00:03:32

And yeah, like I have seen a couple of old churches as well in the US that I think are made to look like they're a lot older than like 50 years old.

Liam: 00:03:42

But I think America doesn't appreciate just how old it is now, you know.

Emma Long: 00:03:48

Yeah, well, here's a fact for you that'll shock you.

Emma Long: 00:03:51

There are more 17th century buildings in Ipswich.

Emma Long: 00:03:54

No, in, yeah, Ipswich, Massachusetts than there are in Glasgow.

Liam: 00:03:59

Wow.

Emma Long: 00:04:01

Now part of that is Glasgow.

Emma Long: 00:04:03

Much of modern Glasgow was built during the 18th and 19th centuries, during the Industrial Revolution.

Emma Long: 00:04:09

But yeah, and a lecturer at Glasgow told me that many years ago who was originally from Ipswich.

Emma Long: 00:04:15

So Ipswich, Massachusetts, which is there north of Boston, is one of the first towns settled by the English in the 17th century, has more 17th century buildings in Glasgow.

Frank Cogliano: 00:04:24

That sounds about right.

Frank Cogliano: 00:04:25

An old colleague of mine used to, he used to teach medieval British history, always used to complain that the Victorians just destroyed everything because they were so focused on modernity, the modern way of doing things, that actually Britain lost a lot of its older buildings and some of that heritage in the Victorian era.

Frank Cogliano: 00:04:48

ry that had survived from the: 1700

Liam: 00:05:06

Although still a lot of lovely parts of Canterbury.

Frank Cogliano: 00:05:09

There are still lovely, lovely parts.

Frank Cogliano: 00:05:12

But yeah, I had a question, Frank, just to come back to.

Frank Cogliano: 00:05:17

So that came up from what we were talking about earlier.

Frank Cogliano: 00:05:19

So I was wondering what you think are the, like the big misconceptions that people have about sort of the Constitutional Convention and that era around the creation of the constitution, things that either students ask or you get asked in public fora where you think, okay, let's take two steps back and start again.

Emma Long: 00:05:40

I think the biggest one is the concerns the three fifths compromise.

Emma Long: 00:05:46

Because, you know, it took me five or six minutes to try and explain that briefly.

Emma Long: 00:05:50

It's complicated.

Emma Long: 00:05:51

But, and I understand and this isn't unique to Britain because Americans think this too, that the Constitution said enslaved people were 3/5 human.

Emma Long: 00:05:59

I think that's the biggest one.

Emma Long: 00:06:01

The other is it's been wrapped up and this is more pronounced, I think.

Emma Long: 00:06:05

And I just spent a year in the US but one does hear this there more than here.

Emma Long: 00:06:11

But you know, this notion that somehow this originalist notion that the Constitution is perfected, either perfecting shouldn't be changed or is unchangeable.

Emma Long: 00:06:20

And we talked a lot about this and you spoke eloquently about it.

Emma Long: 00:06:23

I think Emma, they knew it wasn't perfect.

Emma Long: 00:06:26

They knew it was a work in progress.

Emma Long: 00:06:28

But it's very age and the power of tradition again in a country that sees itself as very modern and forward looking is a real obstacle to change.

Emma Long: 00:06:40

And I think that that part of it is.

Emma Long: 00:06:42

And the other thing is it's very, very hard to explain the.

Emma Long: 00:06:45

I know you guys have done this on previous episodes, the amendments procedure to people because, you know, unfortunately every time there's a mass shooting in the United States, the Second Amendment comes up and people say, well, why don't you just change that?

Emma Long: 00:06:58

And you know, my own view is would that we could.

Emma Long: 00:07:00

But it's very difficult to amend the Constitution.

Emma Long: 00:07:04

It's not impossible.

Emma Long: 00:07:05

You know, when they outlawed booze, they then, you know, they changed that amendment.

Emma Long: 00:07:10

But the problem with the Second Amendment, I mean, I think there are several, but one is because it's part of the Bill of Rights, I think there's a sense that those amendments are different from the other 17 and you know, so Prohibition was adopted and then could be revoked.

Emma Long: 00:07:27

People, I don't think feel that way about those first 10amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights.

Emma Long: 00:07:32

That those are, I think, believed to be unchangeable.

Emma Long: 00:07:35

I don't believe that to be so, but I think those.

Emma Long: 00:07:38

So there is confusion about.

Emma Long: 00:07:39

Sorry, that's a long winded answer.

Emma Long: 00:07:41

I think the three fifths compromise and the unchangeability of the Constitution for whatever reason.

Emma Long: 00:07:49

What do you think are the biggest.

Emma Long: 00:07:51

What do you come up against with your students?

Frank Cogliano: 00:07:54

I mean those two particularly, and I agree about the Bill of Rights, I mean we set them off separately anyway, don't we?

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:01

Because we call them the Bill of Rights.

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:02

And yes, we refer to the Second Amendment or you know, First Amendment rights, but we separate them off by calling them the Bill of Rights.

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:11

As if there's some kind of collective package that can't be touched with it.

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:17

I think sometimes just getting my students to think of the Constitution as a historical document.

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:23

So I'll have them sit down like I do with Any other primary source and sort of take it apart piece by piece and say, how do we see the history of the time reflected in what they write here?

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:36

So, you know, where's the legacy of the revolution in here?

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:39

The sort of the restrictions on the power of the presidency because they're concerned about it becoming a, you know, sort of turning into a monarchy again, Looking at the.

Frank Cogliano: 00:08:49

Some of the wording or the, you know, the balance of power between the branches reflecting their experiences of the late colonial period or that early sort of the.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:01

The era under the Articles of Confederation for those who didn't think that they were working.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:06

And also that.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:07

I think there's also that sense.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:10

Students are surprised when you tell them about the Articles of Confederation.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:14

It's like America had a government before it had the Constitution.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:16

It existed before that.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:19

But because they failed.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:21

Not necessarily failed, but ultimately they're replaced.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:24

They don't get talked about that much.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:28

Yeah, just reminding them that, you know, there's a whole decade, a little over a decade, where there's a.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:34

The government that's working, where they're trying to do, you know, what they need to do first to win the war and then to create a peaceful country out of these disparate former colonies.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:45

There's something going on there already that they have to respond to.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:49

And you sort of see a little bit of the light bulb go on at that point.

Frank Cogliano: 00:09:53

They go from thinking about the Constitution as this slightly dull, boring document that I'm forcing them to read and rather resenting me for it, to seeing how they can understand the parts of it that perhaps they hadn't looked at before.

Emma Long: 00:10:09

Yeah, I agree with you on that.

Emma Long: 00:10:10

I think the Articles of Confederation are interesting, and this is a case where the winners have definitely written the history.

Emma Long: 00:10:18

So because the people who supported the Constitution wanted to replace the bill as the Articles one, we've all bought into the narrative that, okay, they failed and they had to be replaced by this.

Emma Long: 00:10:29

And there's been some historiography pushing back on that.

Emma Long: 00:10:32

I mean, I think there's some merit to that interpretation, but it's easy to forget that.

Emma Long: 00:10:36

It's also important to bear in mind, again, apropos of the changeability, the mutability of the Constitution, the framers of the Constitution knew about the Articles of Confederation and were changing that system and anticipated that there may be changes to their Constitution as well.

Emma Long: 00:10:51

Again, they didn't want it set in stone.

Emma Long: 00:10:53

The other thing I'd say is, with regard to the Bill of Rights, on one hand, I think, Liam, you did the absolute right thing in the program in connecting the Bill of Rights to the Constitutional Convention, because I think that is the end of the Constitution making process from the revolution.

Emma Long: 00:11:09

On the other hand, there's a kind of irony there.

Emma Long: 00:11:12

If we asked people, I suspect in Britain, but certainly in the United States, to identify parts of the Constitution, what most people think of as the Constitution are the Bill of Rights, not the.

Emma Long: 00:11:23

They don't say, hey, Article five says this or whatever.

Emma Long: 00:11:26

It's.

Emma Long: 00:11:27

If they know any, if they know anything specifically about the Constitution, it'll be the Bill of Rights.

Emma Long: 00:11:32

So there's a kind of irony there, I think, that it wasn't in that part of it in the first place.

Frank Cogliano: 00:11:36

Yeah, yeah.

Frank Cogliano: 00:11:37

I'm just thinking that the one other thing that I have to remind my students and actually you see in the media a lot too, the Federalist Papers, right.

Frank Cogliano: 00:11:48

It's.

Frank Cogliano: 00:11:48

They get talked about as like the explanation of what the founders thought about the Constitution.

Frank Cogliano: 00:11:54

You're like, they're propaganda.

Frank Cogliano: 00:11:56

They were written to convince people to vote for the Constitution.

Frank Cogliano: 00:11:59

They're not this kind of neutral discussion about philosophy and principles of government.

Frank Cogliano: 00:12:04

They're propaganda pieces.

Frank Cogliano: 00:12:06

And if you want to get balance, you have to go read the anti Federalist Papers at the same time.

Frank Cogliano: 00:12:11

And yeah, don't, don't think about the Federalist Papers as the explanation for understanding what's going on.

Frank Cogliano: 00:12:21

They were locked in a battle in New York for the Constitution, and New York was an important state and it was really closely divided and they were fighting to get what they wanted.

Frank Cogliano: 00:12:34

And again, the Federalist Papers are much more interesting if you think about them in that regard than if you just think about them as this kind of, I don't know, general neutral explanation of what's going on in the Constitution.

Emma Long: 00:12:51

That's right.

Emma Long: 00:12:52

They're not biblical exegesis, which is how they're usually presented Anyway.

Emma Long: 00:12:55

Sorry, Liam.

Liam: 00:12:56

No, no, I was just going to add, I think we could have a whole miniseries on the politicization of news wires in the U.S.

Liam: 00:13:03

to be honest, starting from way back then, even through to Fox News and that now.

Liam: 00:13:10

Yeah, there's a lot there.

Liam: 00:13:12

But quick side question actually for me to both of you before we wrap up is, you know, obviously the Civil War brought, for a very brief time and rather unsuccessfully, an attempt at the Confederate States.

Liam: 00:13:28

Did they, did the Confederate government, if you can call it a government at that time, did they ever get as far as trying to draft a constitution of their own?

Emma Long: 00:13:40

Yeah.

Emma Long: 00:13:40

And they modeled it on the US Constitution with more slavery protections.

Frank Cogliano: 00:13:46

Yeah, they don't travel very far away from it, do they?

Frank Cogliano: 00:13:49

It's just that issue, you know, they, they want that explicit protection for, for.

Liam: 00:13:55

The system of slavery, which I guess was what the.

Liam: 00:14:00

Pretty much the, the entire basis of the Civil War was on pro and anti slavery.

Liam: 00:14:03

Right.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:05

Yeah.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:06

Other issues come in from linked.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:08

Linked to it.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:09

I mean, in the same way that with the Constitution, slavery is linked to all of those other battles about power and control and influence.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:17

You know, the Civil War is a very similar.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:20

Similar thing.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:20

All of those issues are intertwined together.

Liam: 00:14:24

Yeah.

Liam: 00:14:27

Awesome.

Liam: 00:14:27

All right, well, I mean, I think I've taken up enough of your time.

Liam: 00:14:31

Thank you to both of you, Emma and Frank, for joining and for recording the main episode as well.

Liam: 00:14:38

So if anyone listening to this hasn't already, go and listen to the podcast and follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so that new episodes drop automatically into your feed.

Liam: 00:14:50

Thanks so much.

Emma Long: 00:14:52

Thank you.

Frank Cogliano: 00:14:53

Thanks, Liam.