I was thumbing through the WSJ op ed pages and came across a fascinating, from a thought provoking standpoint, piece.  The author is quoting one Lawrence Goldstone on what was a major sticking point on the constitution back in 1787. 

James Madison finally identified that all the sticking points really boiled down to what to do about slaves in the apportionment of Electoral Votes, Representation, and levies by the feds on the states.

The fascinating thing is that in coming to the eventual compromise of each slave would count as 3/5ths of a person, the North was essentially arguing that slaves were worthless, and the South was arguing for a worth and the fact that they were really people!  At least mostly.

In Mr. Goldstone's opining, southerners:

"who insisted that blacks were property, had to assert that they were at least partly people"

and Northerners:

"who regularly denounced the enslavement of their fellow man, had to acknowledge blacks as at least partly property."

In the ensuing years, when the south was vilified for owning slaves, it is noteworthy that in the beginning, the south seemed to be arguing for the greater humanity of slaves than the North.  The reason of course was economic.  But it is also noteworthy that a Massachsettes delegate, who railed against slavery, also wanted to tax the importation of slaves!

The founding fathers were a strong and ultimately wise bunch.  But the duplicity they had to argue for political reasons meant that 'politics as usual' has been going on since the founding of this country.