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Connecticut Compromise
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The Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise, was an agreement between large and small states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It proposed a bicameral legislature, resulting in the current United States Senate and House of Representatives.
ay 29, 1787, Edmund Randolph of the Virginia delegation proposed the creation of a bicameral legislature, or one consisting of a lower and upper house.
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Encyclopedia
The Connecticut Compromise, also known as the Great Compromise, was an agreement between large and small states reached during the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution. It proposed a bicameral legislature, resulting in the current United States Senate and House of Representatives.
Context
On May 29, 1787, Edmund Randolph of the Virginia delegation proposed the creation of a bicameral legislature, or one consisting of a lower and upper house. Membership in the lower house was to be allocated in proportion to state population, and candidates were to be nominated and elected by the people of each state. Membership in the upper house was to be allocated in the same way, but candidates were to be nominated by the state legislatures and elected by the members of the lower house. This proposal was known as the Virginia Plan.
Less populous states like Delaware were afraid that such an arrangement would result in their voices and interests being drowned out by the larger states. In response, on June 15, 1787, William Paterson of the New Jersey delegation proposed the creation of a legislature consisting of a single house. Each state was to be allotted one representative in this body, regardless of population. Despite the unicameral proposal, there was never really a question of having at least one of the house be based on population; the New Jersey plan was merely a counterpoint, not a practicable proposal.
The Compromise
On July 16, 1787, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, both of the Connecticut delegation, forged a compromise for a bicameral, or two-part, legislature consisting of a lower and upper house.
In favor of the larger states, membership in the lower house, as in the Virginia Plan, was to be allocated in proportion to state population and candidates were to be nominated and elected by the people of each state. A census of all inhabitants of the United States was to be taken every 10 years. Also all bills for raising taxes, spending or appropriating money, and setting the salaries of Federal officers were to originate in the lower house and be unamendable by the upper house. In exchange, membership in the upper house, however, was more similar to the New Jersey Plan and was to be allocated two seats to each state, regardless of size, with members being chosen by the state legislatures. Members of the Upper House, or Senators, were elected by the State Legislature until the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, which called for the direct election of Senators by the people.
The compromise passed after eleven days of debate by one vote — five to four.
By and large the compromise was accepted into the final form of the U.S. Constitution. The provision that all fiscal bills should start in the House was incorporated as Art. 1, §7, Clause 1 (known as the Origination Clause), albeit in a limited form applying only to tax bills and allowing the Senate to amend.
Aftermath
This agreement allowed deliberations to continue and thus led to the Three-Fifths Compromise, which further wrangled the issue of popular representation in the House. More populous Southern States were allowed to count three-fifths of all non-free, non-Native American people towards population counts and allocations.
See also
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