Ken Burns says one factor caused the Civil War: 'Slavery'

Because Ken Burns is a world-renowned professor of history and earned his PhD in 19th century American politics. Uh no. He's a filmmaker. He earned a BA in Film Studies from Hampshire College. He's made some great films, especially one about Baseball...but that doesn't make him Babe Ruth or the one about our National Parks....still doesn't make him Teddy Roosevelt. You know, I've always wanted to play saxophone...maybe I'll have Ken Burns teach me because he made that great documentary about Jazz.

According to the Constitution, "Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons." This applied to more than just black chattel slavery (there were non-black/ African slaves at the time) and only applied to Congressional representation. Slaves were not considered people for any other purpose. The Southern states with most slaves wanted them to be counted as whole persons for representation but the Northern less-slave states wanted them to be counted as nothing other than property just like any other livestock because they knew it would allow the South to have more power in the legislative branch if they were included in population figures for representation. Without the compromise clause either the US would have never formed or there would have been a civil war earlier as the Southern states with large amounts of slaves would not have been able to retain their power in Congress for as long and would have attempted to leave earlier than 1860 which several had previously threatened to do.

As far as lack of compromise goes, yes it definitely led to the Civil War. The problem with that though is what was there to compromise on in 1860? The previous 60+ years had been spent making compromise after compromise to allow slavery to continue to exist in the nation. After the Dred Scott decision in 1857 there was not anything left to comprise on, either slavery continued and expanded where ever current slaveowners wished it to expand or it was eradicated. It is unlikely that giving the Southern States more power by increasing their slaves representative proportion would have been able to do anything, the South had come out in the lead in almost every compromise that had previously been agreed to.

President Lincoln's election in 1860 was all it took for slaveowners to understand that their side was not going to win any further concessions as President Lincoln's Republican Party included an anti-slavery clause in their party platform. President Lincoln found slavery morally wrong but he did not care one way or another whether it continued as long as the Union remained. If the South had not started the war mainly over the possibility of losing their slaves the Civil War would not have happened with or without any further compromise, but it would have eventually come because of the Dred Scott decision making it impossible for any black to ever be a full citizen of the US. As it was, it was not until half way through the war that President Lincoln made it about slavery for the North as they needed something more tangible to fight for than just keeping the nation together.

The 4/5th ruling had nothing to do with a slave's individual value of a man, but with population calculation. The North did not want to empower Southern slave owners with more voting rights in Congress because they owned slaves. A compromise was reached to lessen the slave population in order to weaken Southern political power. If it wasn't for the 4/5th clause, our world may be a lot different for the worse.