Great Compromise

(noun)

An agreement reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the US Constitution. It called for a bicameral legislature, along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states.

Related Terms

Examples of Great Compromise in the following topics:

  • Amending the Constitution

    • The amendment process originally came with restrictions protecting some agreements that the Great Compromise had settled during the Constitutional Convention.
    • The Great Compromise (also called the Connecticut Compromise) was an agreement that large and small states reached during the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
    • It called for a bicameral legislature along with proportional representation in the lower house, but required the upper house to be weighted equally between the states.This agreement led to the Three-Fifths Compromise, which meant less populous Southern states were allowed to count three-fifths of all non-free people toward population counts and allocations.

  • Federalists and Antifederalists

    • The conflict threatened to end the Convention, but Roger Sherman of Connecticut proposed the "Great Compromise" (or Connecticut Compromise) under which one house of Congress would be based on proportional representation, and the other house would be based on equal representation.
    • Eventually, the Compromise was accepted, and the Convention was saved.
    • Compromises were important in settling other disputes at the Convention.
    • The Three-Fifths Compromise designated that three-fifths of slave population would be counted toward representation in Congress.
    • In another compromise, the Congress agreed to ban slave trade after 1808.

  • Bicameralism

    • In fact, it was not until the year 1913 that the Seventeenth Amendment was passed, which "mandated that Senators would be elected by popular vote rather than chosen by the State legislatures. " As part of the Great Compromise, they invented a new rationale for bicameralism in which the upper house would have states represented equally, and the lower house would have them represented by population.

  • Policy Implementation

    • In addition to the aforementioned elements, policy implementation can further be complicated when policies are passed down to agencies without a great deal of direction.
    • Policy formulation is often the result of compromise and symbolic uses of politics.

  • Types of Media

    • A smaller score on the index correspondes to great freedom of press.
    • Evaluate the claim that press freedom is compromised by increasing consolidation in the media industry

  • The Republican Party

    • The main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas.
    • The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil.

  • The Constitutional Convention

    • The convention was held to address problems in governing the United States, which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain.
    • To resolve this stalemate, the Connecticut Compromise, forged by Roger Sherman from Connecticut, was proposed on June 11.
    • This committee helped work out a compromise: In exchange for this concession, the federal government's power to regulate foreign commerce would be strengthened by provisions that allowed for taxation of slave trades in the international market and that reduced the requirement for passage of navigation acts from two-thirds majorities of both houses of Congress to simple majority.
    • The Three-Fifths Compromise was a compromise between Southern and Northern states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 in which three-fifths of the enumerated population of slaves would be counted for representation purposes regarding both the distribution of taxes and the apportionment of the members of the United States House of Representatives.

  • The Representation Function

    • A compromise plan was adopted where representatives were chosen by the population and two senators were chosen by state governments.
    • A compromise plan was adopted and representatives were chosen by the population which benefited larger states.
    • The Connecticut Compromise gave every state , large and small, an equal vote in the Senate.
    • However, others argue that the framers intended for the Connecticut Compromise to construct the Senate so that each state had equal footing that was not based on population.

  • Drafting the Final Document

    • It was convened to address problems in governing the United States of America following independence from Great Britain.
    • The Three-Fifths Compromise designated that three-fifths of the slave population would be counted as part of a state's population.

  • Constitutional Issues and Compromises

    • At the Constitutional Convention, the Virginia, Pinckney, New Jersey, and Hamilton plans gave way to the Connecticut Compromise.
    • To resolve this stalemate, Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut, forged the Connecticut Compromise.