Will Baude, at the prompting of Jacob T. Levy, ponders the Three-Fifths Compromise. I don’t have a better theory than Will’s; I always just figured that’s the offer the southern delegates proffered after a few rounds and that’s what stuck.

I suppose another possibility is that it reflected the assumed ratios of voting populations around 1787—so as to balance voting between relatively free North with the more populous but part-slave South—but I don’t have the numbers in front of me to prove it.

I’m off for an interview in two hours. But, in the meantime, check out Dan Drezner’s post on the impending takeover of Newsworld International by Al Gore. Because what CBC’s “National” needed to be a rip-roaring success south of the border was the one-two excitement punch of Peter Mansbridge and Al Gore. (Of course, it might also help if they didn’t talk about Canada for 90% of the show…)

Also, a data point for you: on the way here (a state capital within a leisurely drive of Memphis, Tenn.), I passed not one, but two, hotels prominently featuring high-speed Internet access on their billboards—at the same exit. Pretty amazing considering almost nobody would have thought high-speed Internet was a needed hotel amenity even three years ago (and I still visit major hotels that have no high-speed access in most rooms—or, rather, pass them up in favor of other hotels, as the case may be).