Still image from Operation Crossroads, U.S. nuclear test at Bikini Atoll, July 25, 1946 (Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com).
The three-fifths rule of the Constitution treated slaves as three fifths of a person for purposes of representation and direct taxation. This provision is puzzling in many ways (above and beyond its connection with slavery). One common way it has confused people is that people often regard the Clause as problematic because it did not treat slaves as 5/5 of a person. But if the Clause had treated slaves in that way, it would not have harmed but benefited slave states, since slave states would have enjoyed more representation in the Congress and the electoral college. But I am puzzled by…