During a forum on the future of the Electoral College on Tuesday, Representative John Conyers (D-MI) stated that the Electoral College is “rooted in slavery.”

Conyers said, “We also must face up to the cold reality that the Electoral College is rooted in slavery. And here’s how that works out: As Professor Amar explains to us, slave states opposed direct elections for the president, because in a direct election system, the north would outnumber the south, whose many slaves could not vote. But the Electoral College instead let each southern count its slaves, although, with a 2/5s discount, they counted for 3/5s of a person, in computing its share of the overall count.”

(h/t and video via The Right Scoop)

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