Civil Government And Politics : The Constitution

The Virginia Plan sparked debate over its legislative representative proposals. The plan proposed representation of the states by population. This proposition favored the larger states. The Jersey Plan also known as the smaller state plan rallied for equal representation for all states. A compromise was finally reached. One house of the legislature would consist of two representatives from each state. This satisfied the small states. The second house of the legislature would consist of representatives based on population, thus satisfying the larger states. The establishment of a fair measure to apply taxation and representation in the legislature was described in the Federalist Papers: The Apportionment of Members among the States. The government would conduct a census that would prevent the states from understating their population for taxation and overstating their population for representation. The “Great Compromise” resolving the issue of representation did not mean that the federalists and anti-federalists had come to agreement on the Constitution.

The legislative branch, Congress, has the power to make laws valid for the whole country. Powers like the regulation of taxes, regulation of commerce between the states and with foreign countries, the power to declare war, and the power to impeach the President are some of the issues the legislative branch has to deal with. Congress has two chambers (or "houses"): the Senate and the House of Representatives ("the house").

The Virginia plan and New Jersey plan were plans proposed by both big and little states to try and better their chances of being represented in Congress. When it came down to representation in congress there became a problem, bigger states wanted to be represented by population while smaller states wanted equal votes. The bigger states proposition became the Virginia plan and the equal vote proposition became the New Jersey plan. They now had to decide how they were going to equally give both little and big states equal representation based on their proposed plans. The end result is known as the Great compromise.

The largest compromise of the two, is known as “The Great Compromise.” The Great compromise is the middle ground that the delegates reached after much argument over two proposed plans. The “Virginia” Plan was better suited for the largest states within America. It favored a more powerful state government, Bicameral legislation and the number of representatives would be based on the state’s total population. Whereas, the “New Jersey” Plan was better suited for the smaller states within the union. It gave the power to a national government, favored unicameral legislation and gave each state an equal number of representatives. After weeks of heavy debate and much disagreement the delegates finally reached a compromise. “The Great Compromise,” combined the values and ideas of both the plans into something that they hoped would appease both large and small states. The Great Compromise awarded a Bicameral legislature and allowed the lower house to be determined by the population, while the upper house gave each state an equal number of

Article I of the Constitution lays out the basic format of the legislative branch. The document states that the power to create laws or change existing laws lies with Congress, a government body made out of two chambers, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state, regardless of size or population, has two senators who are elected directly by the public according to the 17th Amendment. The House of Representatives, on the other hand, is dependent on population, and a state 's number of representatives is determined by the U.S. census every ten years. For example, Alabama 's state

In the “Virginia Plan vs. New Jersey Plan” both plans called for a strong national government with 3 branches which led to the Great Compromise. The Great Compromise provided for a bicameral congress. The bicameral structure wanted to accommodate both large and small states unlike the unicameral which only included the small vote.

That is why there were many compromises during this time. The most famous of the compromises was the Great compromise. The Great Compromise took both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans and met in the middle. This was the start of the constitution and our new government plan. The argument was between large states and small states. The large states wanted to base representatives by population while the small states wanted all representation to be equal between states. Eventually James Madison with Benjamin Franklin’s help would come up with the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan stated that we were to have a bicameral government that consisted of the House of Representatives, that was based on population (what the large sates wanted), and the Senate, where all states had the same number of representatives. (What the small wanted.) with this bicameral government and the House of Representatives there comes another problem, how do we count slaves? Because the amount of representatives a state was given was based on their population any state with slaves obviously wanted slaves to count towards their population and any state that didn’t have slaves didn’t want them to count towards the population. The two sides in this argument were the North and the South. The South were the ones that wanted to have slaves count towards the population and the

The idea of the Virginia plan to propose representation based on population became the House of Representatives. 10. The idea of the New Jersey Plan to propose representation based on one vote per state became the House of Senate. 11. The Constitutional Convention created the Great Compromise to have a bicameral legislature, consisting of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

With a final decision of five to four, the states passed the Great Compromise and it was officially adopted in July 16, 1781. The Great Compromise proposed that the United States would have a bi-cameral legislature instead of an unicameral legislature. There would be two houses: an upper house known as The Senate, and a lower house as The House of Representatives. There would be two senators per state, which favored the equality that small states were longing for. The number of House of Representatives per state would depend on how populous the state was according to the decennial census, giving citizens in large states equal power to citizens of small states. Senators were to be appointed by the State legislatures and would have six-year terms. Whereas the members of The House of Representatives are elected by the public vote and have two-year terms.

What were the compromises in the Constitutional Convention In 1787, 55 delegates met to revise the Articles of Confederation. They ended up writing one of the most documents in the history of the United States. Each delegate had a set of ideals, or beliefs for the 3 main issues. This created many tensions in the three ideas, and a compromise was needed.

`Great Compromise is first and the key compromise in united states constitution, which was facing a major issue like state represented by congress for two plans. There were two plans get together name also Connecticut compromise as well as those plans made legislative branch that bicameral two-house representative which each state representative of proportion in the state’s population and size. For example, large population has more representative small has less represented. One plan was the Virginia plan which represented by population and another one was the New Jersey plan which was made equal

The Great Compromise resolved the representation issue by forming the two houses that we have today by using the idea of a two-house legislature in order to satisfy both sides. It proposed a legislature in which each state would be represented

Any nationwide endeavor across the world over is always faced with a myriad of challenges when one factor in, the interest of different individuals or groups. During the early years of the USA, there were many problems that politicians at the time faced when trying to create and strengthen the country’s Constitution. In the early 1780’s the young country was in a deep depression, and this played a key role in influencing the exercise as it ultimately led to a heated debate about the powers of the National and State governments. Most of the conservative politicians at the time preferred a stronger federal government while state radicals believed that states should have more power since it was in a better position to determine what was best for their citizens (Jilson, 2009). More sticking points divided the founding fathers which threatened the stability and establishment of the USA, such as slavery and federalism.

Colonist had different views when it came to representation, population, slaves, and commerce. The first major compromise is known as the Great Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise. The Virginia Plan said for representation to be based on the population of each state. On the other hand, the New Jersey Plan asked for equal representation for every state. The Great Compromise combined both plans. It was decided that there would be two chambers in Congress: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate would be based on equal representation for each state and the House would be based on population.     The next compromise made was the Three-Fifths Compromise. After it was decided that representation in the House was going to be based on population, the delegates from both Northern and Southern states began to see how another issue was to arise. This issue was how slaves would be ccounted when it came to population. Delegates from the Northern states, where their economy did not rely so heavily on slavery, felt that slaves should not be counted toward representation. If slaves were to be counted it would provide the South with a greater number of representatives. Southern states fought hard for slaves to be counted in terms of population and representation. The compromise

Those states would have the most votes in the lower house, which would in turn elect the other important branches. Not surprisingly, the smaller states objected to the Virginia Plan. Their alternative suggestion was the New Jersey Plan, which was brought forward by William Paterson. Paterson wanted each state to have one vote in the legislature, no matter how big or small that state was. The plan also gave Congress some additional powers that it did not have under the Articles of Confederation. Both plans failed to gain enough support, but as Brinkley points out, neither Randolph nor Paterson had really thought their plans would be passed (108). The two plans were meant to start debate, and they did. That summer, Roger Sherman of Connecticut put forward a compromise, the Connecticut Compromise, also called the Great Compromise. This plan created a lower house (the House of