Editing Connecticut Compromise

{{Short description|Agreement which established the structure of the United States federal legislature}}
{{about|the agreement sometimes referred to as the Great Compromise|the song by [[John Prine]]|The Great Compromise (song)}}
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{{Use American English|date=September 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2018}}
[[File:Roger Sherman 1721-1793 by Ralph Earl.jpeg|thumb|A portrait of [[Roger Sherman]], who authored the agreement]]

The '''Connecticut Compromise''', also known as the '''Great Compromise of 1787''' or '''Sherman Compromise''', was an agreement reached during the [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|Constitutional Convention]] of 1787 that in part defined the legislative structure and representation each state would have under the [[Constitution of the United States|United States Constitution]]. It retained the [[Bicameralism|bicameral legislature]] as proposed by [[Roger Sherman]], along with proportional representation of the states in the [[lower house]] or [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]], and it required the [[upper house]] or [[United States Senate|Senate]] to be weighted equally among the states; each state would have two members in the Senate.

==Background==
{{Further|History of the United States Senate}}
On May 29, 1787, [[Edmund Randolph]] of the [[Virginia]] delegation proposed the creation of a bicameral legislature. Under his proposal, known as the [[Virginia Plan|Virginia or Randolph Plan]], membership in both houses would be allocated to each state proportional to its population. Candidates for the lower house would be nominated and elected by the people of each state, while candidates for the upper house would be nominated by the state legislatures and then elected by the members of the lower house.

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. Many delegates also felt that the Convention did not have the authority to completely scrap the [[Articles of Confederation]],<ref name="MadisonJune16">{{cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_616.asp |title=Madison's notes, June 16 1787 |publisher=Yale Avalon project}}</ref> as the Virginia Plan would have done.<ref name="MadisonMay30">{{cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_530.asp|title=Madison's notes, May 30 1787|publisher=Yale Avalon project}}</ref> In response, on June 15, 1787, [[William Paterson (judge)|William Paterson]] of the [[New Jersey]] delegation proposed a legislature consisting of a single house. Each state was to have equal representation in this body, regardless of population. The [[New Jersey Plan]], as it was called, would have left the Articles of Confederation in place but would have amended them to somewhat increase [[Congress of the Confederation|Congress's]] powers.<ref name="MadisonJune15">{{cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_615.asp |title=Madison's notes, June 15 1787|publisher=Yale Avalon project}}</ref>

At the time of the convention, the South was growing more quickly than the North, and southern states had the most extensive [[State cessions|Western claims]]. [[South Carolina]], [[North Carolina]], and [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] were small in the 1780s, but they expected growth and thus favored proportional representation. [[New York (state)|New York]] was one of the largest states at the time, but two of its three representatives ([[Alexander Hamilton]] being the exception) supported an equal representation per state, as part of their desire to see maximum autonomy for the states.

[[James Madison]] and Hamilton were two of the leaders of the proportional representation group. Madison argued that a conspiracy of large states against the small states was unrealistic as the large states were so different from each other. Hamilton argued that the states were artificial entities made up of individuals and accused small state representatives of wanting power, not liberty. For their part, the small state representatives argued that the states were, in fact, of a legally equal status and that proportional representation would be unfair to their states. [[Gunning Bedford Jr.]] of [[Delaware]] notoriously threatened on behalf of the small states, "the small ones w[ould] find some foreign ally of more honor and good faith, who will take them by the hand and do them justice". [[Elbridge Gerry]] ridiculed the small states' claim of sovereignty, saying "that we never were independent States, were not such now, & never could be even on the principles of the Confederation. The States & the advocates for them were intoxicated with the idea of their sovereignty."<ref name="MadisonJune29">{{cite web |url=http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_629.asp |title=Madison's notes, June 29 1787|publisher=Yale Avalon project}}</ref>

On June 19, 1787, the delegates rejected the New Jersey Plan and voted to proceed with a discussion of the Virginia Plan. The small states became increasingly discontented, and some threatened to withdraw. On July 2, 1787, the Convention was deadlocked over giving each state an equal vote in the upper house, with five states in the affirmative, five in the negative, and one divided.

==Compromise==
The problem was referred to a committee consisting of one delegate from each state to reach a compromise. On July 5, 1787, the committee submitted its report, which became the basis for the "Great Compromise" of the Convention. The report recommended that in the upper house each state should have an equal vote, and in the lower house, each state should have one representative for every 40,000 inhabitants,<ref name="yazawa2016p67">{{cite book|last=Yazawa|first=Melvin|title=Contested Conventions: The Struggle to Establish the Constitution and Save the Union, 1787–1789|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MIqfDAAAQBAJ|year=2016|publisher=JHU Press|isbn=978-1-4214-2026-4|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=MIqfDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA67&lpg=PA67&dq=%22one+representative+per%22+inhabitants+three+fifths 67]}}</ref> counting [[Three-fifths Compromise|three-fifths]] of each state's enslaved population toward that state's total population,<ref name="yazawa2016p67" /> and that money bills should originate in the lower house (not subject to amendment by the upper chamber).

Sherman sided with the two-house national legislature of the Virginia Plan, but proposed "That the proportion of suffrage in the 1st. Branch [house] should be according to the respective numbers of free inhabitants; and that in the second branch or Senate, each State should have one vote and no more."<ref name="usconstitution">{{cite web|url=http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_ccon.html|author=US Constitution.net|title=Constitutional Topic: The Constitutional Convention|access-date=October 17, 2007}}</ref> What was ultimately included in the constitution was a modified form of this plan, partly because the larger states disliked it. In committee, [[Benjamin Franklin]] modified Sherman's proposal to make it more acceptable to the larger states. He added the requirement that revenue bills originate in the House.

James Madison of Virginia, [[Rufus King]] of Massachusetts, and [[Gouverneur Morris]] of Pennsylvania each vigorously opposed the compromise since it left the Senate looking like the [[Congress of the Confederation|Confederation Congress]].<ref>1 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 489, 490, 551 (Max Farrand ed., 1911)</ref> For the nationalists, the Convention's vote for the compromise was a setback. However, on July 23, they found a way to continue with their vision of an elite, independent Senate. Just before most of the convention's work was referred to the [[Committee of Detail]], Morris and King moved that states' members in the Senate be given individual votes, rather than voting en bloc, as they had in the Confederation Congress. Then [[Oliver Ellsworth]], a leading proponent of the Connecticut Compromise, supported their motion, and the Convention reached the enduring compromise.<ref>2 THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, at 94–95 (Max Farrand ed., 1911)</ref>

After six weeks of turmoil, on July 16, 1787, [[North Carolina]] switched its vote to equal representation per state, [[Massachusetts]]' delegation was divided, and a compromise was reached on a 5–4 vote of the states.<ref>{{Cite web |title=3  THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION OF 1787, volume 2, p.15 (Max Farrand ed., 1911) |url=https://memory.loc.gov/ll/llfr/002/0000/00190015.tif |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220530164037/https://memory.loc.gov/ll/llfr/002/0000/00190015.tif|archive-date=May 30, 2022}}</ref> Every state was given equal representation, previously known as the New Jersey Plan, in one house of Congress, and proportional representation, known before as the Virginia Plan, in the other. Because it was considered more responsive to majority sentiment, the House of Representatives was given the power to originate all legislation dealing with the federal budget and revenues/taxation, per the [[Origination Clause]]. 

Since the Convention had earlier accepted the Virginia Plan's proposal that senators have long terms, restoring that plan's vision of individually powerful senators stopped the Senate from becoming a strong safeguard of [[Federalism in the United States|federalism]]. State governments lost their direct say in Congress's decisions to make national laws. As the personally influential senators received terms much longer than the state legislators who elected them, they became substantially independent. The compromise continued to serve the self-interests of small-state political leaders, who were assured of access to more seats in the Senate than they might otherwise have obtained.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Claus |first1=Laurence |date=Fall 2019 |title=The Framers' Compromise |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26866524 |journal=The American Journal of Comparative Law |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=677–684|doi=10.1093/ajcl/avz022 |jstor=26866524 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

==Constitution==
Senate representation was explicitly protected in [[Article Five of the United States Constitution]]:

{{quote|...no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html | title =The Constitution of the United states Article V | author =National Archives and Records Administration | author-link =National Archives and Records Administration | publisher =archives.gov}}</ref>}}

This agreement allowed deliberations to continue and thus led to the [[Three-fifths Compromise]], which further complicated the issue of popular representation in the House.

==See also==
*[[History of the United States Constitution]]
*[[European Parliament]] and [[Council of the European Union]], the two legislative chambers of the [[European Union]], which follow the structural principles of the Connecticut Compromise.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Additional research==
* {{cite journal |last1=Ballingrud |first1=Gordon |last2=Dougherty |first2=Keith L. |date=October 2018 |title=Coalitional Instability and the Three-Fifths Compromise |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26598788 |journal=American Journal of Political Science |volume=62 |issue=4 |pages=12|doi=10.1111/ajps.12378 |jstor=26598788 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Claus |first1=Laurence |date=Fall 2019 |title=The Framers' Compromise |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26866524 |journal=The American Journal of Comparative Law |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=677–684|doi=10.1093/ajcl/avz022 |jstor=26866524 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Earle |first1=Jonathan |date=April 2011 |title=The Political Origins of the Civil War |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23210239 |journal=OAH Magazine of History |volume=25 |issue=2 |pages=8–13|doi=10.1093/oahmag/oar006 |jstor=23210239 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Estes |first1=Todd |date=Summer 2011 |title=The Connecticut Effect: The Great Compromise of 1787 and the History of Small State Impact on Electoral College Outcomes |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24455090 |journal=The Historian |volume=73 |issue=2 |pages=255–283|doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.2011.00291.x |jstor=24455090 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |last1= Farrand |first1= Max |date=April 1904 |title=Compromises of the Constitution |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1833471 |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=479–489|doi= 10.2307/1833471 |jstor= 1833471 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite book |last=Finkelman |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Finkelman |title=Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson |publisher=M.E. Sharpe |year=1996 |location=Armonk, NY |url=https://archive.org/details/slaveryfoundersr0000fink |isbn=9781563245909 |pages=3–32}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Lynd |first1=Staughton |date=June 1966 |title=The Compromise of 1787 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2147971 |journal=Political Science Quarterly |publisher=Oxford University Press |volume=81 |issue=2 |pages=225–250|doi=10.2307/2147971 |jstor=2147971 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{citation |last=Lynd |first=Staughton |author-mask=2 |contribution=The Abolitionist Critique of the United States Constitution |date=1965 |title=New Essays on the Abolitionists |editor-last=Duberman |editor-first=Martin B. |location=Princeton, NJ |publisher=Princeton University Press |url=https://archive.org/details/antislaveryvangu1965dube/page/208/mode/2up|url-access=registration |pages=209–239}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Nelson |first1=William E. |date=July 1987 |title=Reason and Compromise in the Establishment of the Federal Constitution, 1787-1801 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1939766 |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=458–484|doi=10.2307/1939766 |jstor=1939766 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Ohline |first1=Howard A. |date=October 1971 |title=Republicanism and Slavery: Origins of the Three-Fifths Clause in the United States Constitution |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1922187 |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=563–584|doi=10.2307/1922187 |jstor=1922187 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Pope |first1=Jeremy C. |last2=Treier |first2=Shawn |date=April 2011 |title=Reconsidering the Great Compromise at the Federal Convention of 1787: Deliberation and Agenda Effects on the Senate and Slavery |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23025052 |journal=American Journal of Political Science |volume=55 |issue=3 |pages=18|doi=10.1111/j.1540-5907.2010.00490.x |jstor=23025052 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Rakove |first1=Jack N. |date=July 1987 |title=The Great Compromise: Ideas, Interests, and the Politics of Constitution Making |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1939765 |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=424–457|doi=10.2307/1939765 |jstor=1939765 |url-access=subscription }}
* {{cite book |last1=Wills |first1=Garry |date=2003 |title=Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power |url=https://archive.org/details/negropresidentje0000will_j5v0/page/n17/mode/2up |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |location=Boston |pages=1–13 |isbn=978-0618-34398-0}}


{{Roger Sherman}}
{{US Constitution|state=expanded}}

[[Category:Drafting of the United States Constitution]]
[[Category:1787 in the United States]]
[[Category:Political compromises in the United States]]
[[Category:Confederation period]]