The Indiana Senate passed SB 289, which was introduced by state Senator Gary Byrne, in a 64-26 vote. Beckwith posted a video on Thursday to X, formerly
Twitter, criticizing Senate Democrats for comparing the bill to the Three-Fifths Compromise. During the session, Democrats likened the bill to the 1787 constitutional clause that counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for congressional representation, arguing that the bill would suppress efforts to address systemic inequality.
Beckwith said Democrats called the bill "bad," arguing that it "actually encourages discrimination, just like the Three-Fifths Compromise," but he countered that "the Three-Fifths Compromise is not a pro-discrimination compromise, it was not a pro-discrimination or a slave-driving compromise that the founders made. It was actually just the opposite. It was a compromise that the North made with the South."
Many historians emphasize that the Three-Fifths Compromise preserved disproportionate power for slaveholding states and was inherently discriminatory. States gained additional representation in
Congress and in the Electoral College, thereby entrenching slavery in the national political framework.
He added that the Senate Democrats called it "some sort of terrible thing in our past, it was not, it was actually the exact opposite," arguing that the compromise was "designed to make sure that justice was equal for all people and equality really meant equality for all."