...By 1787 it was obvious that the federal government lacked sufficient authority under the Articles of Confederation, leading to the calling of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Per the Congress, the purpose of this convention was to "revise the Articles of Confederation" not to abolish them altogether. However, all the representatives agreed that the articles had to be scrapped and a new governmental document had to be written. As a result, the U.S. Constitution produced "bundle of compromises" because delegates had to give ground under various circumstances to construct a Constitution that was acceptable to each of the 13 states. One of these compromises includes The Great Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise, which combined...
Words: 372 - Pages: 2
...In 1787 the Constitution was made,but during the making of it problems arise. Two major ones were the interest of major states vs. smaller states,and whether slaves should be able to vote or not. These are later known as “The Great Compromise” and “The Three-Fifth Compromise”. The Great Compromise was made because states wanted a say in things, but smaller states didn’t want their voices drowned out by larger states such as Virginia. So Virginia came up with a plan with three branches of government: the Judicial branch, the Legislative branch, and the Executive branch. This government would have two houses: the House of Representatives and the House of Senate. The House of Representatives would be based on population. Depending on the states...
Words: 337 - Pages: 2
...This plan proposed how the bicameral legislature would be selected. The senate would be composed of 2 people representing each state regardless of size. The other chamber of congress, the house of representatives, would be selected by the number of representatives according to each state’s population. This would be an issue to states that had a small population as states with larger population would have more house representatives. More house representatives for a state meant more electoral votes for the soon to be presidential election. In fact, the electoral college was introduced by the Connecticut compromise for the election of the president. Lastly, the connecticut compromise was known for including 3/5 compromise, where slaves would count as 3/5ths of person to decide a state’s population for the number of representatives. This formula gave the southern states a higher population increase than the northern states, as most of nations slaves were held in the...
Words: 570 - Pages: 3
...equal representation. With two opposing sides that both offered valid points, a compromise needed to be made. The “Great Compromise” was a way to take both sides’ needs, and create a new plan that solved the issues between the states. There would be equal representation in the Senate, and proportional representation in the House of Representatives. The Great Compromise was a successful solution to the disputes between the large and small states, because it provided a system of separation of powers that...
Words: 577 - Pages: 3
...The Great Compromise of 1787, also commonly referred to as the Connecticut Compromise, is a prominent event in United States History because of the immense part it played into shaping the representation each state had in the legislative branch. The predominant conflict in this matter was that smaller states in the union wanted each state to have an equal amount of people representing every state in the electoral college, no matter the size, while the larger states favored a plan that would base representation on population size. This compromise, founded by a committee lead by Connecticut delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, ultimately allowed the large and small states to come to an agreement that a state's representation would be...
Words: 290 - Pages: 2
...COMPROMISES OF OUR CONSTITUTION America was built on compromises. What you lose in compromise, you gain by collaboration. A compromise means an agreement reached by opposing claims. (1) There were several compromises that were made to help form the Constitution of the United States. There were three main conflicts the new nation had to be resolve. The main ones were: The Great Compromise, The 3/5ths Compromise and also The Slave Trade Compromise. Even though there were conflicts over a strong central government, and states’ rights, the members in the Philadelphia Convention overcame their differences to form a democratic government that is for the people, and meets the needs of our nation. (2) The original document established for the United States to govern the people was adopted in 1777. It was called, the Articles of Confederation. It was outdated and it needed to be tweaked. Congress had very limited power to regulate national affairs, no authority to tax, or to regulate commerce. As a result of a weak central government, in 1787, the United States went bankrupt. With credit and debt problems, the states convinced the delegates to meet. So, they met in May, at the Convention, in Philadelphia. Rather than fix a broken system, the Virginia plan modeled a whole new government system, it had Federal and National Features. States would have power but submit to a national supreme authority. (3) The Great Compromise was very important. The Virginia plan had the structure...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...Confederation. They specifically needed to fix no chief executive, no court system, stronger government, and many more things. This meeting was later called the Constitutional Convention. With trying to fix all these problems, they all agreed on one thing, no tyranny. Tyranny is a cruel and oppressive government or rule. An example of this would be king George. He was not giving the colonists their unalienable rights. The Constitution guarded against tyranny in many ways. These include federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and The Great Compromise. The Constitution guarded against tyranny through federalism. Federalism is the federal principle or system of government. James Madison wrote about federalism. He wrote about it because he wanted to get people to ratify the constitution. Doc A is an excerpt from Madison’s Federalist Paper 51. Federalism guarded against tyranny because as Madison put it “Liberty requires that the three great departments should be separate and distinct” (Madison, Federalist Paper #47). The evidence says it all. We MUST have the three departments...
Words: 756 - Pages: 4
...The Great Compromise was Benjamin Franklin's most important contribution to the Constitutional Convention; and his work in the Convention was his last great service to the country. He held the Convention together when many of the delegates were ready to leave. After many days of discussion the Great Compromise was adopted on July 16. It provided for a national congress of two houses. In the Senate, each state was given two representatives, thereby satisfying the small states' demand for equal representation. In the House of Representatives, the larger states were favored by basing representation on population; each state was first allowed one representative for every 40,000 inhabitants, later changed to one representative for every 30,000 inhabitants....
Words: 634 - Pages: 3
...Reunion and Reaction is a book about the aftermath of the civil war in a period referred to as the Reconstruction period. This period was a time of attempts at reunification and to bring peace back to the United States. Reunion and Reaction was written by C. Vann Woodward who an American Historian who taught at Yale and John Hopkins University. Unfortunately he passed away in 1999 at the age of 91 This book’s main subject is the compromise of 1877 and how it ultimately ended Reconstruction in the nation. In the election of 1876 it seemed clear that the Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden was going to win the presidency. However, it was noted that three Southern states had reported fraud and were threatening violence towards Republican Party...
Words: 519 - Pages: 3
...Confederation was written in 1777. The states were given power. The Congress could make laws, coin/borrow money, build roads and post offices, deal with foreign nations and declare war. Congress could not regulate trade, collect taxes and enforce laws. The states did not want to give lands to the government. Disputes over land slowed ratification of the Articles of Confederation. The land ordinance of 1785 broke land into six-square mile townships. The land ordinance of 1787 banned slavery and set up a three-step process for state hood. Governing a new nation led to compromises at the Constitutional Convention. The compromise of the constitutional convention caused the Great Compromise, a representative government and the three-fifths compromise. The House of Representatives and Senate were made. The senate had two votes per state. The House of Representatives was based on the state’s population. The compromises satisfied people who supported the Virginia...
Words: 649 - Pages: 3
...Purchase, Civil War, The Missouri Comprise, Civil Rights acts, enslaved African Americans and even information down to one of the latest historically issues the Michael Brown case of Ferguson Missouri. I decided to focus more on The Missouri Compromise of 1820. The Missouri Compromise created a huge quarrel between the northern and southern states. The purpose of the Missouri Compromise was to conserve a balance between power in the Congress within the freed slave states and the non freed slave states. The southern states were against the Missouri Compromise and they argued that it evoked the Congress the power to create laws regarding slavery. The southern states relied on slaves economically because the...
Words: 1215 - Pages: 5
...to fix the problems stated in the Declaration of Independence which was written in the year 1776. The United States Constitution reflects and supports the idea of the Declaration of Independence. Many different problems from the Declaration of Independence needed to be fixed through the Constitution.”He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good”. (Declaration of Independence) The King of Great Britain refused to set laws for the common good of all people. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government. So according to the first amendment, the people’s common good is protected by Congress. There were several economic problems said in the Declaration of Independence, for example:” the imposing of taxes on us without our consent.” (Declaration of Independence) Colonists were extremely angered by the fact that Great Britain felt as if they had the right to impose taxes on the Colonists without any consent of the action. They managed to fix this problem by writing of the Constitution. Congress has the...
Words: 762 - Pages: 4
...to an inability to compromise, and in turn...
Words: 1443 - Pages: 6
...The Constitutional Convention was assembled in Philadelphia in 1787 to discuss and revise the Articles of Confederation. Fifty-five delegates, including James Madison and George Mason, were compiled from several states and the meeting was supervised by George Washington. During this assembly, two different plans of action were set forth to improve upon the existing government: the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. After the proposals of the Virginia and New Jersey plans, the Constitutional Convention was forced to settle on the Great Compromise in order to end disputes between the states and maintain independence for both the national government and the states. The Virginia Plan was authored by the Virginian delegates, including James Madison. It departed from the government system created by the Articles and gave states power while still holding up the federal government as the supreme authority. It was composed of a single executive with two houses (an upper and a lower) as well as a new court system. Representation of the states was based on state population. The authors of the Virginia Plan believed that the delegates would prefer a general grant of authority to a long list of enumerated representatives. The Virginia Plan was fought against by representatives from the small states and a new solution was created to...
Words: 526 - Pages: 3
...To replace the British system of government, the new nation needed to form a governing body and begin to rebuild the colonies after the Revolutionary War. The first attempt at providing the new fledging nation with such a government was established around The Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were developed and written in Philadelphia at the second meeting of the Continental Congress in 1777. The Articles were ratified and became effective in 1781. However, their existence was short lived as major flaws, limitations and discrepancies were mounting. These gave way to the Articles being scrapped altogether and a new governing document being written called the U.S. Constitution. Many have called the Articles of Confederation America's first failure at government. Unification The articles of the confederation was a weak attempt at best, by a new country to try an unite itself and form a government of its own after overthrowing the British tyranny of the previous decade. Under the Articles of Confederation each state had the right to make its own rules and laws, separate from the central government. There was no taxing powers given to Congress, Congress had no power over interstate or foreign commerce. Each state had one vote in Congress, regardless of the states size or population. That in itself was a problem for the larger states who had bigger populations, who were expected to contribute more but still only had one vote. Any amendments...
Words: 1602 - Pages: 7