The Three Compromises Made In The Constitutional Convention

The Summer of 1787 was written by David O. Stewart as a historical, non-fiction recount of the events leading to the Constitutions adoption hundreds of years ago. David O. Stewart is extremely qualified to put together such a book. Mr. Stewart is a prolific author in matters of politics and history. In addition, Mr. Stewart studied law at Yale, a highly praised institution. From his studies in modern law to reading all 500 pages of James Madison’s notes from the constitutional convention, Mr. Stewart has the motivation and intelligence to effectively narrate the time before the constitutions implementation. The Summer of 1787 was copyrighted in 2007 and published Simon and Schuster. The 349 page novel has sold successfully as a result of its

The United States constitution has been named a bundle of compromises because the delegates to the Constitutional convention in 1787 had to compromise on many different main ideas in order to establish a new enhanced constitution that is suitable to each of states. Two compromises that had a significant impact on American society and made the United States constitution become a reality are The Great Compromise and the Three-Fifths Compromise. The moral issue is the lack of representation in Congress.

Compromise was a huge part of America 's history and was extremely useful when it came to the “Articles of Confederation.” The government was starting to realize the articles weren 't strong enough any more and weren 't helping control the citizens. The government said they needed to be revised so Virginia and New Jersey both made an attempt at fixing them. The Virginia Plan was written May 29,1787 and the New Jersey Plan was written shortly after on June 15, 1787. Both plans were preposals for forms of government and both had many flaws. The Virginia Plan was considered unfair to the small states and the New Jersey plan was considered unfair to the large states. Soon after, Roger Sherman from Connecticut wrote “The Great Compromise.” Many

During the early years of America, agricultural demands drove most of the economy allowing the South to demanded political protection. One of the protective measures was the Three-Fifths Compromise in 1787. The South wanted to count the slaves toward its population allowing for more representation. At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates decided to count a slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of determining the population for how many seats each State would have in the House. This solidified Southern control over Politics for several years to come. During the ante-bellum period, the demand for cotton grew continuously forcing yet another successful compromise for the South, the Compromise of 1850. A five bill document, but one very important bill, which was The Fugitive Slave

The Constitutional Convention was arranged for the “purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation” (208). As a result, it was concluded that the power of this great nation should fall in the hands of a “direct authority” rather than within each state (209). Additionally, the national government must provide the Constitution as the representation of the people’s voice and their rights. Consequently, the New Jersey plan became in effect in which equal representation amongst the states in a “unicameral (one-house)” (210). Furthermore, the Great Compromise was latter decided in which based their elements in the importance of separation of powers in which the people were represented by the House of Representatives while the state legislatures

In an attempt to address concerns dealing with representation of the states in Congress, delegates chosen from the states: Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, Delaware, North Carolina, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, Connecticut, and Georgia met in Philadelphia on July 16, 1787 in a meeting called, The Constitutional Convention. Among these delegates was Roger Sherman of Connecticut. Sherman was seen as awkward and unmeaning, giving off the air of a sub-conscious farmer when seated quietly. Although Sherman’s posture and physical appearance was not up to par of other politicians, and gave insight on his background as a Yeoman farmer, his superior intelligence was often recognized and spoken about on a grand level by those

To replace the problematic Articles of Confederation, Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Franklin, and others organized the 1787 Philadelphia Convention and started to compose a new law of the country, the United States Constitution. However, it wasn’t easy to make every state come into an agreement on things written in the Constitution, since all the state wanted to make sure they were equally and fairly treated. As a result, several major compromises in the ratified version of the Constitution, including the Great Compromise, Three-Fifths Compromise, Slave Trade Compromise and the compromise on the Bill of Rights.

From the American Revolution to the 13th Amendment, the institution of slavery has been a major issue in the United States. Many individuals and groups fought relentlessly against slavery, speaking out about the evils of slavery and what threats it poses to the preservation of the Union. The government also attempted to deal with slavery, but not all attempts were successful. Since slaves were the backbone of the South’s economy, compromise on slavery was very difficult. This is a result of southern representatives in the federal government fighting very persistently against abolitionists. The continual debate over the institution of slavery, part of the debate over states’ rights versus the federal government’s power, was one of the factors

At that time congress had no real power because of the Articles of Confederation the US had adopted in 1777. Congress had to rely on contributions from the existing states. Needing and knowing that a change was needed the delegates from different states met to form a new plan of action. One that would give congress more power, equal representation for each state, form a new structure of government and the way it would run to benefit the United States of America. This is why the convention of 1778 was announced, during this convention two different plans were presented. The two plans that were presented was the The Virginia Plan and The New Jersey Plan. The Virginia plan was drafted by James Madison. While he waited for a an appropriate number of delegates to gather at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Virginia plan gave all power to the government. The New Jersey Plan was a proposal to structure the United States Government which was presented by William Paterson also at the Constitutional Convention 1787. This plan limited the power of the congress instead of giving more power. These were two different plans and views.

When James Madison promised that the Bill of Rights would be added to the Constitution, New York ratified the Constitution. The biggest problem my group faced was resolving the tensions over slavery. South Carolina wanted to include African Americans in their population, yet, the South did not want to assure that African Americans were given the same inalienable rights as others. William Patterson did not agree with including slaves in the population, however he did not have a choice but to compromise. The Founding Fathers agreed to allow slaveholder states to count three-fifths of their slave population when dividing the number of state’s representatives to Congress. The Founding Fathers also used this idea to increase the direct federal tax burden of slaveholding states. We did not meet the objective of abolishing slavery because the revised Articles left the power to regulate slavery to the individual states. William Paterson acknowledged that slavery violated the ideals of an American. However, he assured that slave trading was discontinued. We also had problems with agreeing on the powers of the legislature. States such as New York, with a small population wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on the population. States with a large population wanted each state to have the same number of representatives. Due to this disagreement the debate continued. Without the vote of Rhode Island, the proposals of the

In the early years, after winning independence from Great Britain, the American colonies set up their government in accordance with their first constitution, the Articles of Confederation. This means that the majority of the power laid in the hands of the states and Congress, “the only institution of national authority” (Brinkley 151) at that time, had very little power. This distribution of authority was the manifestation of the American’s fear of a strong, central government. However, as time passed, more and more people came to agree that the national government was too weak and needed to be strengthened. For this purpose, a special convention was held in Philadelphia for delegates to “overhaul” the Articles of Confederation and “render the constitution of the Federal government adequate to the exigencies of the union” (161). During what came to be known as the Constitutional Convention, many issues were debated and

The Articles of Confederation go through a long and difficult process. After the Independence War in 1776, the 13 states adopted the Articles of Confederation; it could not solve the problems in early time of America completely.It played an important role in the history of America, because these Articles influenced the Constitutional Convention and promoted the development of history of the United States.

There were many important Compromises between the years of 1820 and 1860, some that worked completely and some that didn’t. In the early nineteenth century, people were good at compromising and making things work for everyone. How long did perfect compromising actually last? Slavery began to split the nation apart, causing compromising to become hard to do. Slavery was one of the biggest problems between 1820 and 1860. Sometimes two states had to be added to the Union at the same time, to make things fair. The North and the South fought almost constantly over the issue of slavery, sometimes things were able to be worked out about it, but as the years passed, the problems with slavery and territory started to become too big to ignore or

Several years after the United States came to be, the Constitutional Convention met to determine how the new nation should govern itself. The delegates saw that it was crucial to have a president and vice president, but the delegates did not want these offices to reflect how the colonies were treated under the British rule. The delegates believed that the president’s power should be limited, and that he should be chosen through the system known as the Electoral College. The Electoral College is a body of people who represent the states of the US, who formally cast votes for the electing of the president and vice president. Many citizens feel that the Electoral College goes against our nation’s principle of representative democracy, while others

The Great Compromise which was founded at the Constitutional Convention wasn't formed without trouble. Many of the delegates that participated in the convention were wealthy landowners and lawyers, who owned many slaves. They failed to notice the diversity that excited within the nation. As they talked how to repair the Articles of Confederation, issues would arise that would create continuous debates amongst each other. One of the issues that would arise would be the nature of the new government. The plan proposed by Virginia otherwise known as the “large-state plan.” Which proposed “a bicameral legislature, in which the lower house would be elected proportionately and the upper house would be selected from a list of nominees sent from the state legislatures on the basis of equal representation for the states.”(add footnote) As the smaller states feared that this plan would lose a voice in the federal government if they continued with the Virginia plan, they opposed this plan and came up with one for themselves which would be known as the “small-state plan.” The small-state plan would propose “a unicameral Congress, with equal representation for each state, with all the powers of the Confederation Congress.”(add footnote)