NASHVILLE — The Three-Fifths Compromise, an agreement reached during the negotiations in 1787 to create the United States Constitution, discovered that, for the needs of illustration and taxation, solely three-fifths of a state’s enslaved folks could be counted towards its complete inhabitants. It is considered some of the racist offers among the many states through the nation’s founding.

Yet in a speech within the Tennessee General Assembly on Tuesday, one consultant defended the compromise, arguing that it was “a bitter, bitter pill” that was essential to curtail the facility of slaveholding states and that helped clear the best way to ending slavery — remarks that have been rebuked by critics, together with Black colleagues, as insulting and demeaning.

“By limiting the number of population in the count,” the state consultant, Justin Lafferty, a Republican from Knoxville, mentioned on the House flooring, members within the Constitutional Convention “specifically limited the number of representatives that would be available in the slaveholding states, and they did it for the purpose of ending slavery — well before Abraham Lincoln, well before the Civil War.”

The feedback got here as lawmakers in Tennessee have been debating legislation on Tuesday aimed at limiting what public and constitution colleges can educate college students concerning the affect of institutional racism and privilege.

Antonio Parkinson, a Democrat from Memphis and the chairman of the Black Caucus within the Tennessee House of Representatives, referred to as Mr. Lafferty’s feedback offensive, and mentioned the applause from different lawmakers after he completed the speech had been particularly stinging.

“I thought it was horrible,” Mr. Parkinson mentioned, including that irrespective of the argument, it was inconceivable to defend insurance policies that protected slavery and did not account for the total humanity of African-Americans. “I don’t care if it’s policy or how you’re counting heads, there is nothing good about slavery.”

Republicans have referred to as for a measure that might reduce funding to colleges that educate vital race idea, a tutorial motion that asserts that historic patterns of discrimination have created disadvantages primarily based on race. It is a part of a broader effort by conservatives across the country to push again towards the argument that racism was a key a part of the nation’s origin story and created imbalances that endure.

In his speech, Mr. Lafferty repeated an argument that has lengthy been made by some scholars and raised by lawmakers in different states. The counting of enslaved folks had been a significant sticking point in the convention. Northerners argued that none of them must be included within the inhabitants totals, however Southerners wished them to be absolutely counted, thus additional strengthening the area’s political energy and insulating slavery from abolition efforts.

Ron Hanks, a Republican state consultant in Colorado, was assailed last month after he mentioned the Three-Fifths Compromise “was not impugning anybody’s humanity.” In Oregon, Dennis Linthicum, a Republican state senator, was criticized for making a similar argument in 2019, saying the compromise was not rooted in a perception by the nation’s founding fathers that “three-fifths was an appropriate measure of a man.”

Mr. Lafferty, who didn’t reply to a request for remark on Tuesday, mentioned within the speech that he was exasperated by what he noticed as a bigger drive to have a look at the nation’s historical past in a harsher mild.

“I don’t say anything on this floor today with any malice toward any of my friends on the other side,” Mr. Lafferty mentioned. “I say this only because I’m tired, y’all. The people of this nation are tired. If you start looking for trouble — if that’s all you’re bent on — I guarantee you, you’re going to find it.”