1.What is the best use of power for the members of constitutional convention to setup a practice using people to count population for political seats if those people did not have representation?
The American constitutional convention of 1787 marked a defiant stand by the southern states when they demanded the count of political seats in the legislature on the basis of their slave population, in spite of the fact that the slaves were denied any voting rights. The northern states took a stand against the slavery system and tried to limit the southern seats so as to have a majority in framing anti-slavery laws. The northern state also feared of the threat of southern states walking out of the convention if their opinion was negated by them. However, they went on a bargain with the Southern states and ended up in equating 3 slaves to 5 white men. Thus, the event actually emabarked an undefined utilization of slaves to gain political power in American legislative system and promulgated the slavery system (Ishiyama and Breuning, 764).
The issue of gaining political seats by using the non represented slave population was extremely injust and rather, a mode of gaining political inclination by the southern states. Still, it can be said that there could have been a anternative use of congressional powers for using political seats allocation on the basis of counted people. First of all, out of the total population of slaves, those who were counted as a population in the 3/5 rule should have been granted the voting rights fo their representatives. The notion of “fighting an oppressed population is central to the Marxist theory of political, structural and institutional equality” (Bale and Knoop,28) and this ensures that even slaves ought to be counted in same ratio as their contribution to the overall political seats. Further, the congressional pwer vested in the hands of representatives could have eased the plight of slaves by granting them voting rights. Also, the rational allocation of seats to the representatives from the slaves could have added to the efforts of Northern states in abolishing slavery. It was clearly stated by Northern delegates that bargaining the 3/5 rule was necessitated on account of the fact that without it thy couldn’t have had any scope of ending slavery at all. The application of Marxism into the issue of abolishing slavery can really sovle the issue of slavery along with gradually evading the lopsided political decision making for entire country’s legislature. The above-stated use of powers of constitutional convention could have been the optimum solution to the problem discussed so far.
As the slaves were denied of any voting rights, their headcount as the eligible population resulted in lopsided allocation of political power in the legislature and consequently, for the entire country. The United states government is influenced by Capitalism. “Capitalism is a system founded on the exploitation of the vast majority by a few (Bale and Knoop,29)”. Hence, for adopting more socially and legally justified approach, the slaves ought to be vested with adequate voting rights and a right to be represented in the house of representatives to ensure that every political seat was served by a delegated who was chosen by same number of people, whome he actually represented.
Works Cited
Bale, Jeff and Knoop, Sarah. " Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation". Haymarket Books.Ed. Chicago, Illinois, 2012. 9-41. Print
Ishimaya, John and Breuning, Marjike. " 21st Century Political Science: A Reference Handbook". Sage Publications.Ed. Los Angeles, Illinois, 2011. 763-777. Print
