Compromises of the Constitution



The Great Compromise

The Great Compromise was a compromise in 1787, that was attained during the drafting of the
United States Constitution. The delegates were trying to find a way each state could be represented in Congress. There were two plans, the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. In the New Jersey plan, the smaller populated states wanted the same number of representatives as the more populated states to represent Congress. They then created a system where the population of a state didn't determine the number of representatives a state had. Each state had the same number of representatives to represent Congress. However, in the Virginia Plan, the more populated states felt that they should have more representatives than the less populated states. The Framers of the Constitution decided to put the two plans together to create a compromise, known as the, Great Compromise. In the Great Compromise the Senate had only two representatives no matter what the population was and in the House of Representatives, the number of representatives of each state was based on the population of that state

 Three-Fifths Compromise
Now that population had some what to do with representation, the framers had to decide on how to

Three-Fifths Compromise

count slaves. States that held slaves wanted to count each slave as a full person, but states that did not hold slaves felt that they should not count slaves as full people. In order to meet an agreement for both sides, the Framers decided to count each slave as three-fifths of a person, calling it the Three-Fifths Compromise.