I’m sorry, Mike, the metaphor you are perpetuating is the irreducible wickedness of America. Jesse Jackson, heard in my youth, quoted in The Outside Story: “The founders, for all their brilliance, couldn’t count to one.”
Well, some of them (John Rutledge) wanted every one of their slaves counted to their credit, and most of them, including most northerners, were willing to split the difference in order to secure the union. But some of them wanted slaves freed from the beginning.
When we miscontrue the three fifths clause, we all tend to forget that it was controversial from the beginning, and that great efforts were required, and made, to overthrow it and its kindred abuses.