HOW WAS THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION A SERIES OF
COMPROMISES?
Directions: Read the following and then answer the questions that appear below:
The year was 1787. The place: the State House in Philadelphia, the same location where the Declaration of
Independence had been signed 11 years earlier. For four months, 55 delegates from the several states met to frame a
Constitution for a federal republic that would last into “remote futurity.” This is the story of the delegates to that
convention and the framing of the federal Constitution.
GREAT COMPROMISE
Based on the Connecticut Compromise (July 16, 1787), the Great Compromise was a plan proposed by the
Connecticut delegates to the Constitutional Convention establishing a two-house legislature. The Virginia Plan,
supported by the large states, called for a legislature in which representation was based on population. The New
Jersey Plan, supported by the small states, favored a legislature in which each state would be represented equally.
Under the Great Compromise the U.S. Senate became the body based on equal representation, with two senators
from each state, and the House of Representatives the body based on population. It should be noted that every state
must have at least one member.
THE THREE-FIFTHS COMPROMISE
The three-fifths figure was the outgrowth of a debate that had taken place within the Continental Congress in 1783.
A special committee recommended apportioning taxes by population. The Continental Congress debated the ratio of
slaves to free persons at great length. Northerners favored a 4-to-3 ratio, while southerners favored a 2-to-1 or 4-to-1
ratio. Finally, James Madison suggested a compromise: a 5-to-3 ratio. All but two states – New Hampshire and
Rhode Island – approved this recommendation. But because the Articles of Confederation required unanimous
agreement, the proposal was defeated. When the Constitutional Convention met in 1787, it adopted Madison’s earlier suggestion.
The Three-Fifths Compromise greatly augmented southern political power. In the Continental Congress, where each
state had an equal vote, there were only five states in which slavery was a major institution. Thus the southern states
had about 38 percent of the seats in the Continental Congress. Because of the 1787 Three-Fifths Compromise, the
southern states had nearly 45 percent of the seats in the first U.S. Congress, which took office in 1790.
SLAVE TRADE
The most controversial issues discussed at the Constitutional Convention involved slavery. Among the matters that
Convention debated was whether states were obligated to return runaway slaves; whether slaves would count in
apportioning representation or taxation; whether Congress had the power to abolish or regulate the slave trade from
Africa or the West Indies or to regulate the interstate slave trade; and whether Congress had the right to prohibit
slavery in the western territories. In the end, the northern delegates’ commitment to union proved to be greater than
any commitment to weaken slavery. Pierce Butler of South Carolina proposed that states be required to return
fugitive slaves.
ELECTORAL COLLEGE
There was a fear among the states as to how an executive would be chosen. In the first design of the Electoral
College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution): Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal
to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each
decade according to the size of each State’s population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States.
Questions for Discussion:
1. Identify the term: Connecticut Compromise.
2. Why were each of these changes to the national government a compromise among the various United States of
America? a. Great Compromise, b. Three-Fifths Compromise, c. Slave Trade, d. Electoral College.
3. Which of these would you consider the most important? Explain your answer.
4. In what ways did the constitutional convention both run counter to and also fulfill the spirit of the Revolution?
B.P.A. History
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