At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the original purpose of the convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation. However, despite this original goal, many of the delegates sought the creation of a new government. Leading this movement were James Madison and Alexander Hamilton. Both men sought change but had significantly different causes for action. Madison believed the best solution was for the executive power to be checked by the legislature as a means to best represent the people. Hamilton instead believed that the federal government should be based upon the British constitution and monarchy. At the convention 's conclusion, the delegates had created the U.S. Constitution which included several major political compromises …show more content…
Constitution. However, a significant issue plaguing the Great Compromise was how slaves would be represented in a state 's population. The Southern states wanted slaves to be counted as a part of the population for the purpose of representation. This would give the Southern states more power in the House of Representatives. However, the Southern states did not want slaves to count as part of the population for taxation purposes (Dahl). The Northern states did not believe that slaves were actually treated as part of the population in Southern states and, therefore, did not believe slaves should be counted towards population. This difference of opinion as to how slaves should be counted led to the creation of the Three-Fifths Compromise. (Dahl, Lecture) The Three-Fifths Compromise determined that slaves would be counted as Three-Fifths of a person towards a state’s population. Southern states did not fully avoid taxation but, with slaves now counted toward the states populations, the South had an advantage in the House of Representatives due to the higher number of slaves in the Southern states. The most significant consequence of the Compromise was the unfair advantage it gave the Southern states regarding representation in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College. Due to this advantage, the Southern states had a political advantage up until Abraham Lincoln 's enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment to the
Obviously, that would be greatly unfair to the northern states because the south would have more seats in the House of Representatives meaning unfair representation. As a result, many northern states refused to allow this happen so both regions came to an agreement that allowed slaves to be counted as 3/5 of a person, when doing a census for determining seats in the House of Representatives. Finally, Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3 was put into the Constitution making the compromise official. The whole Convention was deadlocked on the slave representation issue which almost completely fell apart if nothing was to be done, but lucky the compromise kept the Constitutional Convention together. Moreover, the men who opposed slavery, but accepted the 3/5 clause did so knowing the Constitution had more good to give than some of the evils written in it. They could have thought the Constitution had provisions written down that could eventually outlaw slavery or maybe they realized this new government was greatly beneficial to all Americans. Although, we can now all agree that even though the 3/5th clause is wrong, it gave America a chance to become a great
As tensions between the North and the South rose on the issues of slavery and states’ rights, numerous compromises were proposed to ease the conflict. Such compromises included the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Crittenden Compromise. These compromises had intentions of defining where slavery was permitted and clarifying states’ rights. They were only temporary fixes to a more pressing issue. Between the Missouri Compromise and the Crittenden Compromise, a series of events changed the political atmosphere of the United States and prevented any more compromises on the institution of slavery from being passed.
Debates over which powers were rightly the states and rightly the federal governments were already tense and the question of whether slavery should or shouldn’t exist in the new territories of America, added on to the already strained relationship between the two sides. Document A describes this situation as a cup on the edge of the shelf, certain things almost pushing it over the edge such as the addition of new states being free or under a slavery economy. Many compromises were formed to try and keep states’ rights as well as keep power for the government. The south wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish federal rights they didn’t support, this was
The Constitution Convention was made, some of compromise which was balancing power between the federal government and state government in 1787. Because of some issues was emerging at a constitution convention like lager and small states those the key compromises helped to create a perfect constitution of the united states.
The Constitutional Convention of 1787 marked the evolution from the Articles of Confederation to the U.S. Constitution. The ratification argument led to disagreements between the Federalists, who wanted to approve the Constitution, and Anti-Federalists, who opposed the document. The latter believed that the new system forced by the Constitution failed to protect the individual rights of citizens and threatened liberties.
Roche 's article is the only reading that addresses the Three-Fifths Compromise at length. This suggests that while he saw this compromise as important, other authors might not have shared the same viewpoint. In comparison, Estes only mentions it briefly before an in-depth examination of the Connecticut Compromise, despite the fact that both had important consequences on the Electoral College at the time. The Three-Fifths Compromise stipulated that for purposes of legislative representation and taxes, three-fifths of each slave would be counted toward a state 's population. It also provided the South with additional votes in presidential elections.
The Constitutional Convention is a new plan for the government. It is a government people have to follow. it is important people follow it otherwise something could happen to them. the Constitutional Convention is a new plan in place of the Articles Confederation. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton where to create the Constitutional Convention. George Washington was elected by the delegates to preside over the Constitutional Convention.
There are a number of compromises that can be found in the U.S constitution, all having had a major role in shaping what we all know today as the United States of America. With so many important compromises it is hard to chose just one. That being said, the compromise which I intend to discuss is the three-fifths compromise. This compromise is important in our history and is a pretty controversial matter.Three-fifths compromise was important for both the northern and southern states. The main question that was brought up for this subject was if slaves should be counted in census to determine the number of congressional delegates a state should recieve.
This may have balanced the slave to non-slave state count in the union but it also basically flat out divided the nation based on slavery. Instead of solving the problem it was a temporarily solution that eventually lead to struggles between the North and the South over the introduction of future western states into the union on the issue of slavery. The passing of this compromise was solely due to the people in Congress, and the president and had nothing to do with the Constitution what so ever.
The House of Representatives uses the states' population to determine how many representatives each state receives in the House. In the southern states, they thought that everyone, including slaves, should be counted. The northern states did not think that it was fair to count the slaves in the total population, since there were a lot more slaves in the south than the north. Both sides agreed to the 3/5 Compromise. This compromise said that for every 5 slaves, they would be counted as 3 citizens. Therefore, 60% of the slave population would be used when the states' population is counted. Slavery in the United States lasted until towards the end of the Civil War and even some after the Emancipation Proclamation, since it only freed slaves in the South and not in the North.
They felt that the three-fifths compromise allowed for a misrepresentation within the government. Another more negatively perceived argument against the three-fifths compromise was through the use of Northern racism which said that southern African Americans were held as equals to Northern whites. Previously, while under a Federalist administration, the North did not feel the need for the three-fifths compromise to be abolished; however, as soon as the Federalist representation decreased in the government, New England cease to benefit anymore especially in their commerce. Closely tied to the three-fifths compromise was the fact that more slave states were being added to the Union which also lessened New England’s representation (Mason, 2002). With all these injustices, as perceived by New England's Federalist, they had come to a breaking point and was pushed to form a conference to try and solve these
There were many disagreements and compromises that occurred while in the process of creating the Constitution. Some were: the debate over slavery, the debate of the Virginia plan and the New Jersey plan, and the disagreement about the amount of time the president should work. There was a huge debate over slavery and the states were torn between abolishing slavery and owning slaves. A three-fifths clause was created so that slaves would be considered part of the state’s population. Three-fifths of the slave population was a compromise where some of the slaves would be counted “in determining each state’s representation in the House of Representatives and its
The three-fifths compromise is when they counted the slave’s percentage of the population. The problem was that more slaves where in the south’s where their population would be more than the North’s. So they knew that sooner or later they would have to make both sides happy if they didn’t want another war on their hands. Therefore, they decided to count the slaves but only three fifths of them. So it gave the South some what they wanted, but also didn’t give it fully what they wanted- which goes the same with the North.
One of those compromises was the fugitive slave clause. It required states to return runaway slaves. (Oakes 220) This clause gave constitutional protection to the slaveholder; no matter what state or territory the slave could escape to, he was still a slave and could not be freed, and the emancipation laws of that territory were “null and void”. ( Bestor 14) The early fugitive slave clause was highly ignored and rarely enforced which irritated the Southerners. As part of the Compromise of 1850 a new fugitive slave law would be enacted. ( Dry) This law was created in attempt to settle disputes over the previous constitutional clause, instead it would cause much discord between the North and South. ( Oakes 420) Tense arguments were started in respect to what slaves should be considered, people or property. The south believed they should be treated as property and not given a trial or defense since they lacked the “natural liberties”, however, the abolitionist argued that a free black person could be picked up in the north by a southern plantation owner claiming to be his master and that free black person could be taken from free soil into slave territory without a fair trial or any evidence from the
To compromise, the Constitution recognized slaves as three-fifths of a person to give the South more voting power. For example, if there were 500,000 slaves and 500,000 free people in a state, the state would have a total population of 800,000 (500,000 + 300,000) when it came to voting