Constitutional Compromise | iCivics (2024)

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What was the constitutional compromise summary? ›

Great Compromise

Also known as the Connecticut Compromise, a major compromise at the Constitutional Convention that created a two-house legislature, with the Senate having equal representation for all states and the House of Representatives having representation proportional to state populations.

There were four main compromises that were necessary in order to adopt and ratify the Constitution. These compromises were the Great (Connecticut) Compromise, Electoral College, Three-Fifths Compromise, and Compromise on the importation of slaves.

The Great Compromise settled the big state / small state controversy that threatened the very existence of the United States of America as a single, unified nation. The larger, more populous states wanted representation in the Congress to be solely in proportion to population.

Called the “Great Compromise” or the “Connecticut Compromise,” this unique plan for congressional representation resolved the most controversial aspect of the drafting of the Constitution.

The Compromise of 1850 was made up of five separate bills that made the following main points: Permitted slavery in Washington, D.C., but outlawed the slave trade. Added California to the Union as a “free state”

Certainly, not all compromises must be fair and, if fairness is not a concern, negotiation or bargaining processes work fine.

The compromise provided for a bicameral legislature, with representation in the House of Representatives according to population and in the Senate by equal numbers for each state.

The Compromise of 1850 consists of five laws passed in September of 1850 that dealt with the issue of slavery and territorial expansion. In 1849 California requested permission to enter the Union as a free state, potentially upsetting the balance between the free and slave states in the U.S. Senate.

Without compromise a new constitution, a stronger functioning central government, would never have been ratified. Roger Sherman, a delegate from Connecticut, provided the opening salvo when he proposed early on a bicameral legislature.

Roger Sherman is the only person to have signed all four of the most significant documents in our nation's early history: the Continental Association from the first Continental Congress, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the United States Constitution.

Were there any weaknesses in the Constitution? ›

It is no secret that the Constitution signed on that fateful day of September 17, 1787 was highly flawed. It denied women and minorities, especially black individuals, their basic human rights for decades to come. It protected slavery. It denied civil liberties that should have been guaranteed to all.

The major debates were over representation in Congress, the powers of the president, how to elect the president (Electoral College), slave trade, and a bill of rights.

Delegates gathered to correct the various problems that had arisen while the newly-independent nation was operating under the Articles of Confederation following independence from Great Britain. The historic result of the Convention was the crafting of the United States Constitution.

There are three possible achievements of the Constitutional Convention that could be considered the most important: drafting the Constitution, ratifying the Constitution, and creating the three branches of government.

In the end, they settled on the Great Compromise (sometimes called the Connecticut Compromise), in which the House of Representatives would represent the people as apportioned by population; the Senate would represent the States apportioned equally; and the President would be elected by the Electoral College.

The Great Compromise established the United States legislature as a bicameral, or two-house law-making body. In the Senate, each state would be allowed two representatives; in the House of Representatives, the number of representatives allowed for each state would be determined by its population.

Three-fifths compromise, compromise agreement between delegates from the Northern and the Southern states at the United States Constitutional Convention (1787) that three-fifths of the enslaved population would be counted for determining direct taxation and representation in the House of Representatives.

Their so-called Great Compromise (or Connecticut Compromise in honor of its architects, Connecticut delegates Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth) provided a dual system of congressional representation. In the House of Representatives each state would be assigned a number of seats in proportion to its population.

Representation would be adjusted every ten years through a federal census that counted every person in the country. By coming up with a mixed solution that balanced state sovereignty and popular sovereignty tied to actual population, the Constitution was forged through what is known as the Connecticut Compromise.