Joel Myers’s Reviews > Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840–1920 > Status Update

The 3/5 clause did not, of course, have the role or purpose that its popular reputation suggests. And it did function as a compromise that got the rocket off the ground. But! It nevertheless had very ill practical effects: enshrining southern power. That obviously gave control of the electoral college to the less populous (and less moralistic) south, *and* it slowed the cultural evolution away from the slave trade.