The 3/5th Compromise & James Madison’s Crystal Flute

Image by Opus Penguin

Recently an artist named Lizzo – with whose body of work I am wholly ignorant – was given permission by the Library of Congress to perform with James Madison’s crystal flute. This sparked much criticism and discussion, given Madison’s role in the infamous ⅗ Compromise during the writing of the Constitution.

This caused great confusion, which with I will today dispel, around the ⅗ Compromise and the painful history of Madison’s crystal flute.

So, let me tell you a story.

It’s 1776, and James Madison is sitting in his rooms in Philadelphia and he’s writing the Constitution. This friend of his, a guy named Gouverneur Morris, comes to visit him. Now Governeur Morris is a guy from New York who is really famous for his penmanship. He’s also part of a secret group of white supremacists called Abolishizers. The Abolishizers wanted to, like literally, abolish slaves. Like, “We don’t think of you as people and don’t think you should exist, so we want to just get rid of you.”

They were deeply problematic white supremacists, obviously.

James Madison is like, “Hey, Gouverneur Morris, what’s on your mind?”

And Gouverneur Morris is all, “Hey, remember when we were writing the Articles of Confederation and we were talking about taxation and people were all, ‘Let’s only count blacks, the indigenous and people of color as ⅗ of a person for the purposes of taxation. I mean we don’t think they should be counted at all, but we can, you know, compromise’ and how we couldn’t get New York and New Hampshire to agree to this scheme?”

Madison is all, “Yeah, those jerks in New Hampshire wouldn’t go along with it. I hope their state symbol, like, collapses in the fog or something.”

And Governeur Morris goes, “You think that’s bad, you should see their fascist tax policy. It’s a whole state of, like, literal Hitlers.”

So Governeur Morris goes, “What do you think about a ⅗ Compromise, but instead of taxation, we do it for the purposes of apportionment.”

And James Madison is like, “I don’t follow you, man. I mean hombre. I mean whatever. I mean, I own slaves. I know they’re not people and stuff, but at the same time I, like, philosophically, think slavery might be, like, unjust, right? Like maybe just send them back to Africa?”

Governeur Morris is like, “Think about it. There are like, I don’t know, a bajillion slaves in America. When we do a census and figure out how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives, those people are gonna get counted, and when they vote, they’re going to have, like, Representatives who share their interests. We can’t let them have that much power. But if we only count BIPOC as ⅗ of a person, then they won’t get so many Representatives and we white people will be disproportionately more powerful. I mean, if we are going to found a nation on the brutal and inhumane institution of slavery, this is how we’re going to have to do it.”

James Madison goes, “That’s a great idea, Governeur Morris; I’m gonna write that into the Constitution and it’s gonna be the law of the land until, you know, the Fourteenth Amendment!”

And so, he did.

He went around and convinced all the delegates at the Constitutional Convention, like, the ConCon, that BIPOC should only count as ⅗ of a person.

When it came time to ratify it, he needed, like, nine of the 13 states to vote to go along with his plan. And you know which state was the ninth and thus the state that made the ⅗ Compromise the law of the land?

That’s right, New Hampshire.

There are still, like, only WASPs that live in New Hampshire.

So, he’s back chilling in Virginia and he gets a call from one of the delegates at the ConCon, a guy from New Hampshire named John Langdon. See, Langdon’s brother was this famous Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon. So, John Langdon is all, “New Hampshire isn’t as bad as you thought it was, James Madison. You should come up here some time and chill with me and my pals.”

So, James Madison goes up to Lake Winnipesaukee and he’s, like, hanging out with all of Langdon’s friends on this steamship for rich white dudes called Mount Washington. Robert Langdon is there and New Hampshire Governor Josiah Barlett is there and there’s this other guy there named Dr. Henry Jones.

Now, Dr. Jones is a fascism and white supremacy professor at Marshall College in Connecticut. Like, a totally racist indoctrinator. He’d, like, get coeds to write racist slogans on their eyelids for him. Why didn’t they Me, Too his creeper ass? Well, this was before Roe v. Wade, so women had literally no control of their eyelids. Anyway, he’s also an adventurer, because he really likes having adventures and stuff.

So they’re all sitting around drinking brandy out of these, like, really, really swank crystal goblets or chalices or whatever, and Madison is like, “Now that the Constitution has been ratified and the ⅗ Compromise is the law of the land, I should celebrate my racist achievement. I’m, like, the father of the Constitution and stuff, I totally owe it to me. I’m going to buy a flute, but not just any flute, a really, like, rare and expensive flute. And it’s gotta be made in France.”

Josiah Bartlett looks at the brandy holding thing in his hand and goes, “What if you got a crystal flute?”

And James Madison goes, “That’s a great idea Future President Josiah Bartlett, I’m gonna do just that! But where am I gonna get enough, like, high quality crystal to make a flute?”

Henry Jones hears this and he’s all, “I know just the place, James Madison. There’s, like, this mysterious crystal skull in South America. It’d be dangerous to get, but since I’m, like, an adventurer in my spare time, I could totally get somebody to cover my fascism and white supremacy classes at Marshall College in Bedford, Connecticut for me and go to Peru to get it for you.”

Madison is all, “That would be so cool of you, Dr. Henry Jones. Thank you!”

So, Henry Jones goes to Peru and he’s in, like, the Amazon rainforest and he’s like, “This is, like, unspoiled natural beauty. We white people should totally come and chop this all down.” 

Well, he searches and searches and he finally comes to this, like, Incan village and he’s all, “I want that skull.”

And they’re like, “We’re just peaceful indigenous people living in harmony with each other and the natural world, raising alpacas on our jungle alpaca ranches and chewing coca leaves and minding our own business and stuff. You’re a white oppressor.”

And he goes, “I’m not going to ask nicely, I’m just going to appropriate that mysterious crystal skull and take it back to America.”

Which is what he did.

He gave the skull to James Madison, who then gave it to Ben Franklin who was the Ambassador to France. Franklin took the skull and gave it to this famous flutier named Claude Laurent and says, “Hey, Claude Laurent, I’m Founding Father Ben Franklin, and I’ve got a friend named James Madison who wants you to make him a flute out of this mysterious crystal skull that he had stolen from some innocent BIPOC in Peru.”

Except he, you know, said it in French.

Claude Laurent goes, “Je peux le faire pour vous. Je suis célèbre pour mes flûtes.” Which is, like, “I got this,” but in French.

Six to eight weeks later, James Madison is sitting at his plantation being, like, fanned by his slaves and one of them comes up to him with a box and is like, “Master, the FedEx guy left you this box. I would tell you where it is from but you, like, totally won’t let me be literate and stuff.”

So, James Madison, architect of the ⅗ Compromise and Father of the Constitution, opens the box and takes out his new crystal flute.

And that’s how James Madison’s ⅗ Compromise led to him buying a crystal flute.

This is the second installment of the 2019 Project, an occasional series of satirical tales lampooning history-illiterate moderns.

The Project’s manifesto, with links to previous tales, can be found here.