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The Great Compromise was forged in a heated dispute during the 1787 Constitutional Convention: States with larger populations wanted congressional representation based on population, while smaller states demanded equal representation. To keep the convention from dissolving into chaos, the founding fathers came up with the Great Compromise. The agreement, which created today’s system of congressional representation, now influences everything from “pork barrel” legislation to the way votes are counted in the electoral college during presidential elections.
The debate almost destroyed the U.S. Constitution.
At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, delegates from larger states believed each state’s representation in the newly proposed Senate should be proportionate to population.
Smaller states with lower populations argued that such an arrangement would lead to an unfair dominance of larger states in the new nation’s government, and each state should have equal representation, regardless of population.
The disagreement over representation threatened to derail the ratification of the U.S. Constitution since delegates from both sides of the dispute vowed to reject the document if they didn’t get their way. The solution came in the form of a compromise proposed by statesmen Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut.
The Great Compromise created two legislative bodies in Congress.
Also known as the Sherman Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise, the deal combined proposals from the Virginia (large state) plan and the New Jersey (small state) plan.
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