Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith is facing backlash for sharing a debunked conservative argument that the Three-Fifths Compromise was a step toward ending slavery in response to a discussion surrounding a bill that would eliminate state diversity programs.

In a nearly four-minute video shared on his government X/Twitter account, Beckwith said the Three-Fifths Compromise was “not a pro-discrimination compromise,” but that it limited the “pro-slavery” vote in Congress.

“This was a great move by the North to make sure that slavery would be eradicated in our nation. They knew what they were doing,” Beckwith said. “Here, you have Senate Democrats, in today’s American Republic, who do not understand that. They think the Three-Fifths Compromise was a scourge on Black people. That’s not what it was.”

Beckwith goes on to blame diversity, equity and inclusion and “woke” educational institutions for the way history is taught.

“Don’t buy into the DEI, radical, revisionist history that is happening in today’s culture,” Beckwith said. “The Three-Fifths Compromise, and many other things like that, were designed to make sure that justice was equal for all people and equality really meant equality for all.”

Chair of the Indiana Black Legislative Caucus and State Rep. Earl Harris, D-East Chicago, said in a statement that the Three-Fifths Compromise was created during the 1787 Constitutional Convention and determined that five enslaved Black people in the South would count as three free white people.

Beckwith’s comments whitewashed history, Harris said in the statement released Tuesday.

“To argue that the Three-Fifths Compromise was the North’s attempt at playing ‘the long game’ to undermine the South is not just a gross misunderstanding of history, it’s a purposeful whitewashing of it for political gain and media attention,” Harris said.

“To this day, the ghost of the Three-Fifths Compromise still haunts Black Americans. From restrictions on voting rights to implicit bias in health care to an unjust justice system, too many people in power still view Black Americans as ‘less-than.’”

The Three-Fifths Compromise was part of a provision of the U.S. Constitution that dealt with how to allot seats in the House of Representatives and dole out taxes based on population. State populations would be determined by “the whole Number of free Persons” and “three-fifths of all other Persons.”

Because the size of a state’s delegation in the House of Representatives and a state’s electoral votes depended on its population, Southern states pushed for counting slaves fully and Northern states wanted the slaves not counted at all. But, for taxation, the roles were reversed.

Ultimately, the compromise helped build support for ratification of the Constitution in 1789. Southerners might never have supported a document that gave no weight to slave populations. Northerners might have opposed ratification if slaves were fully counted for representation.

Historians point to the Election of 1800 — when Thomas Jefferson defeated incumbent President John Adams — as one example of how the Three-Fifths Compromise benefitted Southern states’ political power. Ten of the first 12 U.S. presidents — including Jefferson — owned slaves.Only with the adoption of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments at the end of the Civil War, which abolished slavery and extended political rights to Black Americans, was the Three-Fifths Compromise repealed.

“Effectively, the Three-Fifths Compromise gave the South more political power, because enslaved African Americans were counted toward Southern representation without having any rights themselves and gave Southern states more electoral votes,” Harris said. “With the South paying a greater share of federal taxes, the Three-Fifths Compromise emboldened Southern slave owners to argue that its abhorrent practice grew the American economy and therefore justified slavery.”

The Three-Fifths Compromise discussion emerged Thursday, on the last day of the legislative session, when the Senate discussed and voted on Senate Bill 289, which addresses unlawful discrimination, prohibits “discrimination” in a state education, public employment and licensing setting that “is based on a personal characteristic of the person.”

Among its provisions, the bill states that universities and state offices can’t require employees to complete training or licensing “asserting that, or endorsing the theory that,” a person with a certain personal characteristic is inherently superior or inferior to a person with a different personal characteristic; should be blamed for actions committed in the past; or has a moral character that is determined by a personal characteristic of the person.

While discussing the bill, State Sen. La Keisha Jackson said the original U.S. Constitution language doesn’t directly address race and ethnicity when defining people. But, the Three-Fifths Compromise clause in the U.S. Constitution counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for purposes of representation and taxation, Jackson, D-Indianapolis, said.

In the current political climate, Jackson said diversity, equity and inclusion has become a “bad statement,” but it’s something that has had to be “fought for, redefined” in the U.S. Constitution. Diversity, equity and inclusion benefits white women, people with disabilities, veterans, among others, before Black people, Jackson said.

“We’re in a sad place today. We’re carrying the water from a federal level down to a state level,” Jackson said. “We cannot pass a bill that has no merit, and call it merit, excellence and innovation.”

After Jackson concluded, Beckwith said DEI and MEI aren’t mentioned in the bill and asked Senators to keep their comments on the bill. In fact, the word diversity is in the bill 35 times, each time in reference to repealing current code and each time the word is crossed out.

In addressing the Three-Fifths Compromise, Sen. Gary Byrne, who authored the bill, said everyone in the Senate “is 100% whole.” The Three-Fifths Compromise was created in a time, Byrne said, when Southern states would’ve had more electoral votes compared to Northern states.

“It wasn’t because a Black person was three-fifths of a man. That’s not true. That’s not what that three-fifths was ever about,” Byrne, R-Byrneville said.

Indiana Senate Democrats released a statement Monday condemning Beckwith’s comments, and pointed to the Republican-led legislature’s “dangerous movement that mirrors the toxic playbook unfolding in Washington and beyond.”

“No compromise that counted human beings as fractions can ever be anything but a stain on our nation’s conscience. The Three-Fifths Compromise entrenched the enslavement of people, empowered oppression and delayed justice by generations,” according to the statement.

In addition to Senate Bill 298, the legislature removed at the last minute ethnic and culturally responsive education from state curriculum in House Bill 1002. Meanwhile, Gov. Mike Braun signed an executive order eliminating Indiana’s Office of Equity, Inclusion and Opportunity.

“This is not coincidence. It is not misunderstanding. It is strategy,” the Indiana Senate Democrats’ statement said.

The Associated Press contributed.

akukulka@post-trib.com