Why was the Great Compromise so important?

The Great Compromise—also known as the Connecticut Compromise or the Sherman Compromise—was an agreement made between large and small U.S. states that partly defined the representation each state would have in the legislature under the United States Constitution.

Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

• Overview and background
• What did the Great Compromise do?
• What was the result of the Great Compromise?
• Suggested Reading
• The Great Compromise and the Constitution
• Complications of the US Constitution
• Constitution Compromises of 1787
• The Great Compromise Definition and Explanation
• Who proposed the Great Compromise?
• The Great Compromise and the Representative Republic
• What Is the Great Compromise?
• What Did the Proposal Entail?
• How Does the Great Compromise Work Today?
• How Is the Number of Members in the House of Representatives Determined?
• Problems With the Great Compromise in Modern Times
• The Great Compromise and the Electoral College
• Presidential Campaigns
• Effects of the Great Compromise

This compromise occurred in the year 1787. It remains a pivotal moment in American History, as it was a crucial convention to amend the Articles of Confederation, which required fixing to remedy the crisis that the United States was facing at that time.

Let’s start by briefly examining the background of the Great Compromise.

The Connecticut Compromise led to a crucial debate among state delegates concerning how each state would be represented in Congress. This led to the Congress being split into a two-chambered system. This created the House of Representative, which is determined by a state’s population. The agreement retained the bicameral legislature, but the Upper House had to change in order to accommodate two senators from each state. The deal reshaped the American government’s structure, striking a balance between the highly populated states and their demands, while also taking into consideration the less-populous states and their valid interests.

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Overview and background

The United States went through some tumultuous years in the 1780s. The 1781 ratification of the Articles of Confederation provided an inadequate governmental structure. It had severe shortcomings related to the regulation of critical economic activities, such as trade, the levying of taxes and the drafting of soldiers. It also failed to solve the slavery issue, which had become polarizing in the North-West Territory. Following the Anglo-American Revolution, the economy had plummeted and continued to struggle.

American Revolution (Photo Credit : Good Free Photos)

Many citizens found it extremely difficult to earn a livelihood, let alone pay taxes too! Hence, many people had turned to the State for help, but to their dismay, there were no concrete relief schemes in place. Further contentious political tactics had created significant strife and discord among the people. This instability called for a delegation in 1785, proposed by Alexander Hamilton, to address the idea of a national reform. James Madison responded with support and asked other states to send their delegates to Annapolis, Maryland, for a conference. However, only five states’ representatives attended, but they still approved a plan in which every state would send delegates to the 1787 Philadelphia convention.

In May of 1787, 55 delegates representing 12 states (Rhode Island was absent) met in Philadelphia to discuss the limitations of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention started later on, when Madison proposed the Virginia Plan, which Patterson countered with the New Jersey Plan.

What did the Great Compromise do?

Before 1787, larger states like Virginia preferred congressional representation based on the population of the respective state. However, on the other end, smaller states wanted an equal representation of all states. This led to a massive debate and significant tension between the larger and smaller states. It was Edmund Rudolph and James Peterson who eventually came up with a solution for this via the Virginia Plan on May 29, 1787.

This plan outlined that the government should comprise three branches—the legislature, executive, and judiciary. The three branches would serve a two-house legislature. The populace would elect the members of the Lower House, who in turn would elect representatives for the Upper House. In other words, both houses included a proportional population representation. Madison also proposed that Congress be granted a veto for all state laws. The New Jersey Plan, put forward on June 15, 1787 by William Patterson, called for equal representation of each state, as was the case in the Articles of Confederation, but Patterson also sought to increase Congressional power. He called for a one-house legislature, fair representation from each state, and popular elections.

Patterson also proposed a lifetime Supreme Court appointed by executive officers. He focused on the likelihood that the national government could violate the sovereignty of the states, so there needed to be a body that could keep the federal government in check. At this point, the less populous states’ representatives feared that the agreement would result in larger states drowning out their voices and interests, rendering the small states useless at the national scale. Madison, on the other hand, argued that the most important states were very different from each other. Hamilton pointed out that each state was an artificial entity. As such, the two sides, in which one side comprised the large states and the other represented the smaller states, rejected each other’s plans. The disagreements called for reflection, leading to intense negotiation over the future of the US government.

American Supreme Court (Photo Credit: Pixabay)

Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut, made a suggestion that eventually turned into the Great Compromise. His idea involved a two-legislature form of government in the US—the Senate and the House of Representatives. For every 300,000 citizens, a state would be allowed to send one member to serve in the House of representative, along with two senators (regardless of the state’s size). On July 16, 1787, despite Benjamin Franklin’s efforts to block the equal voting rights of smaller states, the proposal passed by one vote. Thus, the compromise was conjured, which paved the way for final constitutional passage and an important stepping stone in the creation and development of the United States.

What was the result of the Great Compromise?

The most significant effect of the Great Compromise was the substantial change in America’s governmental structure. The agreement focused on working out the interests of large states like Virginia and New York, as well as the smaller states like New Hampshire and Rhode Island, striking a balance between proportional and general clout. The most visible change achieved under the compromise was that each would split congressional delegates between representatives, who would then be elected by district to serve in the Lower House, as well as senators to represent individual states in the Upper House.

The American House of Representatives (Photo Credit: Office of the Speaker of the House/Wikimedia Commons)

As such, the compromise balanced the needs of both the smaller states, which wanted a unicameral legislature, and the larger states, which were rooting for a bicameral legislature, thus paving the way for constitutional development. Ultimately, the Connecticut Compromise kept the Convention together and led to a bicameral Congressional system, in which the Lower House is based on proportional representation, and each state has equal representation in the Upper House. In conclusion, the Great Compromise helped to establish a power balance between large and small states concerning their voice and representation in Congress.

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At the Constitutional Convention, a vast amount of work went into drafting the United States Constitution. However, different states disagreed on how they would be represented in Congress.

What was the Great Compromise?

The Great Compromise was a solution where both large and small states would be fairly represented by creating two houses of Congress. 

In the House of Representatives, each state would be assigned seats in proportion to the size of its population. In the Senate, each state would have two delegates regardless of size.

Read on to find out how the Great Compromise came into being and exactly what it meant.

The Great Compromise and the Constitution

The United States Constitution was created in 1787 to replace America’s first unofficial Constitution, the Articles of Confederation.

Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation had proven ineffective in guaranteeing a strong national government. This was very apparent in the lack of response to Shays’ Rebellion, an armed protest against the government’s handling of taxes.

The Constitution that continues to govern the country today first came into effect in March of 1789 after its ratification by the required number of states.

Complications of the US Constitution

In 1787, 55 delegates from all 13 states met to draft the document that would eventually become the Constitution. 

As one might imagine, these 55 men, who included George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison, all had varying opinions about what the new Constitution should contain and wanted to promote the interests of their states.

There was plenty of debate and what emerged from all this deliberation and discussion was the foundation for the strong Federal Republic. But, of course, there were also a few compromises thrown in to meet the demands of the various delegates.

Constitution Compromises of 1787

There were three significant compromises:

In this article, we’ll focus on the Great Compromise of 1787.

The Great Compromise Definition and Explanation

Who proposed the Great Compromise?

The Great Compromise is also referred to as the Connecticut Compromise because it was proposed by Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, two delegates from Connecticut. Some also call it the Sherman Compromise after Roger Sherman.

The Great Compromise is why our Congress today has two houses:

• The lower chamber is called the House of Representatives.
• The upper chamber is called the Senate.

The Great Compromise and the Representative Republic

All delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted to create a representative republic.

The question was, how many representatives should be elected from each of the 13 states?

The basic proposal was that states with more people should get more representatives, while states with lower populations would get fewer representatives.

States with higher populations were happy with this arrangement. However, smaller states felt it was unfair and wanted just as much representation as the larger states would have.

The Constitutional Convention was on the verge of collapse as this representation issue was not resolved.

What Is the Great Compromise?

The Great Compromise solved the issue of the representation of states by creating two houses. This is called a bicameral legislature.

Delegates only narrowly accepted the proposal.

What Did the Proposal Entail?

The number of representatives each state would get in the House of Representatives would be proportional to that state’s population. The number of members each state could elect to the United States Senate would be two, regardless of the state’s size.

In other words, larger states have more power in the House of Representatives, but the largest and the smallest states have the same power in the Senate.

How Does the Great Compromise Work Today?

As a large state and the most populous in the Union, California has 53 representatives in the House of Representatives. Seven smaller states – Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Delaware, and Vermont – only have one representative.

With nearly 40 million people, California and Wyoming, with around 580,000, have two seats in the United States Senate. This number is the same in all states, regardless of size.

How Is the Number of Members in the House of Representatives Determined?

The number of members of the House of Representatives that each state gets is determined every 10 years through the census, most recently conducted in 2020.

According to Article 1, every state must have at least one representative, but there can not be more than one representative for every 30,000 people.

The House of Representatives threatened to become too large as the country’s population grew, and every 10 years, Congress would make a law that stipulated the total number of representatives.

Since 1963, the number of representatives has been fixed at 435.

Problems With the Great Compromise in Modern Times

As the population has grown, the power of smaller states has become more and more disproportionate in the Senate. This means that small states can demand more money from the federal government in exchange for voting on specific bills.

The Great Compromise was somewhat similar to the Three Fifths Compromise. This counted 3/5 of enslaved people as part of a state’s population for purposes of the number of congresspeople allowed in the House of Representatives. The similarity is that it sought to satisfy two separate categories of states.

In the case of the Three-Fifths Compromise, it was slaveholding and non-slaveholding states.

The Great Compromise is found in Article I of the Constitution, which describes how the legislative branch functions.

The Great Compromise and the Electoral College

The Great Compromise also affects how the Electoral College works. Each state is assigned Electors based on the number of their House of Representatives and senators combined.

California, for example, has 55 electoral votes because they have 53 representatives and two senators.

Montana (and the other six states mentioned earlier with only one representative) has three electoral votes because they have one representative and two senators.

Presidential Campaigns

The number of representatives that a state has directly affected where presidential candidates choose to campaign in the country. Candidates will focus on states that could vote Republican or Democrat (swing states) and that have a significant electoral count. Florida, with its 29 electoral votes, is a good example.

It is through the legislative branch (Congress) and the executive branch (the President, who the Electoral College elects) that the Great Compromise affects the United States today.

Effects of the Great Compromise

The Great Compromise is why the United States has two chambers in its bicameral legislature: the House of Representatives and the Senate. Collectively, these are referred to as the United States Congress.

Members of the House of Representatives are typically referred to as “Congresspeople” – “Congressman” or “Congresswoman,” depending on gender – while members of the Senate are Senators.

The Great Compromise balances concerns about congressional representation based on population – although larger states have more power in the House of Representatives, all states have the same amount of power in the Senate.

All this ensures that every state is relevant when making laws that apply to the entire country. An example is that California can’t overpower Wyoming because, although they have more Representatives in the House, they each have the same number of senators in the Senate.

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