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THE GREAT COMPROMISE

THE GREAT COMPROMISE

2 Abstract

The Constitution of Convention allowed the delegates from all thirteen states to come together at the Constitution Convention for a new resolution for the failing Articles of Confederation and eventually led to a compromise to create a new form of a national government. The resolution proposed to have three branches: Legislative, Executive, Judicial. However, one primary issue that arose during the convention between the larger and smaller states was how they would represent the legislatures. Eventually, the debate led to a compromise, and there would be equal representation for each state regardless of the size and population. For this reason, the Great Compromise adjudicated how the Constitution Convention shaped Congress we have today. Keywords: compromise

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3 Introduction

When America declared its independence from Great Britain in 1776, the thirteen colonies became self-governing states (Barbour, P. 40), ranging from big and small states and popularized by slaves and non-slave owners. Those states came together during the Revolutionary War and came up with the United States' first Constitution—The Articles of Confederation. The Articles intended to establish a weak central government and strong, independent states. (Merrill, 1981) The Articles set up a government that consisted of a onehouse body of delegates called Congress. Each state has a single vote—despite its population's size, collectively, and making decisions on specific issues that affected all the states. (Levy, 1986) Also, Congress was responsible for conduct foreign affairs and established treaties. However, the Articles denied Congress the ability to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce, and enforce laws. Since the central government has minimal power; therefore, there was no President nor a national Supreme Court. Without a strong national government to unify the states, each state has its separate power and ability to create its currency. It created prroblems since Congress could not impose taxes, which left the economy to collapse after The Revolutionary War, which led to Shay's rebellions in Massachusetts as a protest of rising debts and economic chaos. (Barbour, 2019) Eventually, in 1787, the delegates gathered in Philadelphia to discuss revising the failing Articles of Confederation. However, soon they realized that it was too broken to fix, so they sought to create a new U.S Constitution instead. (Barbour, 2019) While the debates were not easy, to make matters worse, the delegates decided to divide into two groups: Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The Federalists believed in a stronger central government, then later came up with the Virginia Plan. Simultaneously, the AntiFederalists advocated states' rights and came up with the New Jersey Plan to oppose the

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Constitution. Eventually, the arguments between the two opposing sides settled, and they came up with the Connecticut Plan or the Great Compromise.

Virginia Plan While waiting for all the states' representatives to gather in Philadelphia for the Constitutional Convention, James Madison, a Virginian, drafted the plan because he believed that the Articles of Confederation emphasized the states' sovereignty and not enough national government. He wrote a series of fifteen proposals in detailed reasons why the Articles of Confederation. (Brant, 1950) It Should alter for a strong national government that could make taxes and enforced laws, which was then presented to the delegates during the Constitutional Convention in May 1787 by the governor of Virginia, Edmund Randolph. The Virginia Plan first proposed that the United States should be governed by bicameral legislatures and consist of two branches: The Senate and the House of Representatives, which means that the population of free individuals would determine each state's representation of legislators. (Levy, 198) The Virginia Plan also called for the government to divide into three branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial. Furthermore, it proposed that each of these branches would have the ability to check and balance the other branches to prevent power abuse. (Barbour, 2019) Moreover, it is one of the critical principles, as we have known today in our Constitution. Thus, this proposal benefited larger states such as Virginia and New York because the more people each state has, the more representatives it gets in the legislatures. However, the delegates from smaller states felt it was an unfair proposal because the proportional representation means they would have less government involvement than the larger states. Therefore, they proposed a plan called The New Jersey Plan.

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New Jersey Plan In 1787, a New Jersey delegate, William Paterson, rose to propose the New Jersey Plan during the Constitution Convention. It was the second formal plan formulated by the smaller states in providing alternative ideas for the government system as a response to the Virginia Plan. (Levy, 1986) Since the Virginia Plan wanted each states’ representatives based on population, Paterson and other delegates from smaller states feared that they would represent unfairly. The New Jersey Plan wanted to reshape the Articles of Confederation, maintain a unicameral chamber, and limit one-house legislature with one vote for each state. (Merrill, 1981) Since each state declared its independence, they believed that they should enter the newly developed country as an individual entity. Granted, the Articles of Confederation denied Congress to regulate trades and set taxes, but under the New Jersey Plan, they had the power to do so. Also, under the New Jersey Plan, Congress could select an executive branch that consists of more than one person to divide power among the states in fear of one person becoming too powerful. (Levy, 1986) Which means there would be more than one president running the country. However, they cannot be re-elected and can be removed by Congress when requested by most executives. This plan also created a Judicial branch comprised of a Supreme Tribunal appointed by the federal executives. Ultimately, the larger states rejected the New Jersey plan as a foundation for the new Constitution, so they used the Virginia Plan instead and added some of the New Jersey Plan's ideas. In the end, The Connecticut Compromise introduced the most important of these plans, also as known as the Great Compromise.

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Great Compromise After Virginia and the New Jersey Plan presentation, Constitution Convention has come to a standstill because both sides were unwilling to take sides. A Connecticut delegate, Roger Sherman, proposed a proposal called the Connecticut Compromise, or as we know as the Great Compromise, to resolve the disagreements between the large and small states over representatives' apportionment. (Sawe, 2019) The Compromise offered a blend of the Virginia and New Jersey Plan to determine the method for apportioning the state representatives and retaining a federal character in the Constitution. The Connecticut Compromise kept the bicameral legislature under the Virginia Plan and divided into Upper and Lower. The Upper house is the House of Representatives base on the states' population. Thus, it pleased the larger states because they would have more representatives. Furthermore, the Senate that sits in the Lower house would have equal representation for all states. In that case, each state would have two senators regardless of the population, which all the delegates from larger and smaller states agreed on. (Sawe, 2019) However, another issue arose, and the delegates found themselves divided once again: slavery. The smaller states were curious about how the slaves would count into the population numbers used to determine Congress representation. Of course, the Southern states automatically wanted the slaves to be counted in full to get more representatives. (Barbour, 2019) Of course, the Northern states rejected the idea that slaves should not be counted as part of the population because there were not many slave owners, which cause them to have fewer representatives. Once again, the delegates went back to the drawing board and came up with the Three-Fifths Compromise. According to Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitutions states: Representatives and

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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." (Philbrick, 2018) When the Article stated, "the other Person" meant slaves, it was the most disgrace time in history. Then again, it was part of their normal society back in the 18th century. Even though "the other Persons" were counted as part of the population, they did not have any right to vote for the people to represent them. (Philbrick, 2018) Nonetheless, it was not one of the problems that concerned the delegates at the time. After all, the delegates of all states agreed to Roger Sherman's proposal to the bicameral legislature that made up the House of Representatives and the Senates. Then, each state recommended the plan to send an equal number of representatives to the House. Finally, the large and small states were pleased with Sherman's proposal and came together to draft the Constitution, and it became known as the Great Compromise.

Conclusion The Great Compromise a large part of American history. It was also one of the main reasons why the Constitutional Convention moved forward in resolving the differences between the large and small states. Thus, the delegates were also able to draft the new Constitution then later sent it to get ratified. To sum up, the debates between the delegates during the Constitutional Convention set examples for lawmakers today on how to compromise in the face of disagreements.

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8 References

Barbour, C. (2019) AmGov: long story short. Los Angeles: Sage Publications, Pages 36 - 62 Brant, I. (1950) James Madison: Father of the Constitution, 1787–1800. Pages 23–54. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Levy, L. W., Karst, K. L., & Winkler, A. (2000). Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. New York, NY: Macmillan Reference, USA.

Levy, L. W. (1986), " Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/encyclopedias-almanacstranscripts-and-maps/virginia-plan

Levy, L. W. (1986). ." Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved October 17, 2020, from https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/encyclopedias-almanacstranscripts-and-maps/new-jersey-plan

Madison, J. (1787). Founders Online: The Virginia Plan, 29 May 1787. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0005

Merrill, J. (1981) The New Nation: A History of the United States During the Confederation, 1781–1789, revised edition (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981); Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/news-wires-white-papers-andbooks/america-under-articles-confederation

Philbrick, Steven. Understanding the Three-Fifths Compromise. 2018, www.theusconstitution.org/news/understanding-the-three-fifths-compromise/.

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Sawe, B. E. (2019) What Was The Great Compromise? 2 Apr. 2019, www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-was-the-great-compromise.html.

Vile, J. R. (2013). The men who made the Constitution: Lives of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press. Page 3...