Salon.com > Three-fifths compromise

Heat rising on Emory president

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 20:25:00 +0000

How much longer can James Wagner hold on at Emory University?

Emory University faculty voted this week to censure the embattled president over his controversial column which used the notorious "three-fifths" compromise as an example of an effective, pragmatic and high-minded political deal-making. It has sparked outrage across social media.

And Friday, students and others -- carrying signs that said "this is 5/5 outrageous" and calling for his resignation -- protested outside a campus reception to celebrate the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's work following the killing of Martin Luther King Jr.

Emory board stands behind James Wagner

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 22:47:00 +0000

The Emory University board of trustees appears to be standing behind its embattled president, James Wagner.

Wagner apologized for his controversial column in an Emory magazine -- which used the three-fifths compromise as its only historical example of the virtues of compromise and pragmatism -- after it sparked a social media outrage this weekend. That constitutional compromise counted slaves as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of distributing tax dollars to states and determining representation in Congress.

But trustees who spoke with Salon on Tuesday supported Wagner.

"He has my 100 percent, undivided support," said Ben F. Johnson III, the chairman of the board of trustees.

Emory faculty blasts president for exalting “three-fifths” compromise

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 17:28:00 +0000

More than 30 members of the departments of history and African-American studies at Emory University have publicly rebuked the school's president for a controversial column that held up the "three-fifths" compromise as an example of "(p)ragmatic half-victories (which) kept in view the higher aspiration of drawing the country more closely together."

"This is the first time that any of us has seen anyone point to the three-fifths clause as an example of what good, right-thinking individuals can accomplish when they avoid ideological fixity," the faculty members write in the Emory Wheel. "It is also, though we are sure unintended, an insult to the descendants of those enslaved people who are today a vital part of the Emory University community and our nation."

Emory president apologizes

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 20:31:00 +0000

UPDATED, 3:20 p.m., Sunday:

Emory University president James Wagner has apologized for "the hurt caused by not communicating more my own beliefs." He writes that "To those hurt or confused by my clumsiness and insensitivity, please forgive me. "

And he says that he considers slavery "heinous, repulsive, repugnant, and inhuman. I should have stated that fact clearly in my essay."

* * *

The full text of Wagner's explanation/apology can be read here.

Wagner now insists that "The point was not that this particular compromise was a good thing in itself. It was a repugnant compromise. Of course it is not good to count one human being as three fifths of another or, more egregiously, as not human at all, but property."

But while he says his point was not to praise this compromise as a good thing in itself, here is his original text: