[长难句突破]

The three-fifths formula handed Jefferson his narrow victory in the presidential election of 1800 by inflating the votes of the southern states in the Electoral College.

主体句式：The three-fifths formula handed Jefferson his narrow victory.

结构分析：要注意本句的主语是"The three-fifths formula"，hand作为动词在这里有"result in"的意思，即导致......的结果。句子后半部分by引导的方式状语具体说明了杰弗逊赢得总统大选胜利的方式。

[全文译文]

In 1784, five years before he became president of the United States, George Washington, 52, was nearly toothless. So he hired a dentist to transplant nine teeth into his jaw- having extracted them from the months of his slaves.

That's far different image from the cherry-tree-chopping George most people remember from their history books. But recently, many historians have begun to focus on the roles slavery played in the lives of the founding generation. They have been spurred in part by DNA evidence made available in 1998, which almost certainly proved Thomas Jefferson had fathered at least one child with his slave Sally Hemings. And only over the past 30 years have scholars examined history from the bottom up. Works of several historians reveal the moral compromises made by the nation's early leaders and the fragile nature of the country's infancy. More significantly, they argue that many of the Founding Fathers knew slavery was wrong and yet most did little to fight it.

More than anything, the historians say, the founders were hampered by the culture of their time. While Washington and Jefferson privately expressed distaste for slavery, they also understood that it was part of the political and economic bedrock of the country they helped to create.

For one thing, the South could not afford to part with its slaves. Owning slaves was "like having a large bank account," says Wiencek, author of An Imperfect God: George Washington, His Slaves, and the Creation of America. The southern states would not have signed the Constitution without protections for the "peculiar institution," including a clause that counted a slave as three fifths of a man for purposes of congressional representation.

And the statesmen's political lives depended on slavery. The three-fifths formula handed Jefferson his narrow victory in the presidential election of 1800 by inflating the votes of the southern states in the Electoral College. Once in office, Jefferson extended slavery with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803; the new land was carved into 13 states, including three slave states.

Still, Jefferson freed Hemings's children- though not Hemings herself or his approximately 150 other slaves. Washington, who had begun to believe that all men were created equal after observing the bravery of the black soldiers during the Revolutionary War, overcame the strong opposition of his relatives to grant his slaves their freedom in his will. Only a decade earlier, such an act would have required legislative approval in Virginia.

1784年，在当选美国总统的5年前，52岁的乔治·华盛顿几乎掉光了牙齿。因此他雇了一个牙医为他移种了9颗牙--这些牙齿都来自于他的奴隶口中。

相比人们在历史书本中学到的那个坎樱桃树的乔治，这是一个截然不同的形象。但是近来很多历史学家都开始关注奴隶制在美国开国的那一代人中所扮演的角色。这在部分上是受1998年那件著名的DNA证据事件的影响，在那个事件中DNA证据几乎毫无疑问地证实了托马斯·杰弗逊和他的奴隶Sally Hemings至少生了一个孩子。而学者们开始从下至上地研究历史还是近30年的事情。一些历史学家的著作揭示了美国的早期领导人在最不稳固的建国初期作出的道德妥协。更加重要的是，他们认为很多开国元勋们知道奴隶制是错误的--但是他们很少用实际行动来进行反抗。

历史学家们认为，最主要的原因就是那些开国元勋们都受到了他们所处时代的文化所限。当华盛顿和杰弗逊在私底下表达他们对于奴隶制不满时，他们也知道奴隶制是他们创建的这个国家的政治经济基础的一部分。

一方面，南方的各个州无法承担废除奴隶制带来的损失。拥有奴隶"就像拥有一张数额巨大的银行存折"，《一个不完美的上帝：乔治·华盛顿、他的奴隶和美国的建立》一书作者Wiencek说道。如果没有对于这种"特殊制度"的保护，南方各州是不会签署宪法的，这种保护包括了如下条款，即在国会代表人数中一个奴隶可以算作五分之三个公民。

政治家的政治生命也取决于奴隶制。正是由于这个五分之三公式扩大了选举团中南方州的选票，从而帮助杰弗逊在1800年的总统选举中险胜。入主白宫以后，杰弗逊在1803年通过购买路易斯安娜扩大了奴隶制；这片新的土地后来被分为13个州，其中包括了三个蓄奴州。

但是，杰弗逊解放了Hemings的孩子--尽管他没有解放Hemings自己和其他的约150名奴隶。华盛顿在目睹了黑人们在革命战争中的勇敢之后，开始相信所有人生来都是平等的，于是他不顾亲戚的反对，坚持给予他的所有奴隶自由。而仅仅在10年前，解放奴隶的法案在弗吉尼亚才得到了法律上的批准。