Roger Sherm The Ingenious Idea Of The Great Compromise

1606 Words7 Pages

The American Revolution was a great and eventful time in American history. The colonists were tired of being under the harsh rule of the British king. Americans soon realized they were being taken advantage of by being subjected to unfair taxes and acts of violence by British soldiers. This was simply not the dignity and fair treatment Americans believed every human being was entitled to. High tensions between the Americans and the British led the colonists to declare war. They made their intentions of independence well known in the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which was a document explaining why the colonists wanted to break away from the king. The Revolutionary War ended in 1781 with the British surrendering. America had finally won …show more content…

Known as the Great Compromise, or the Connecticut Compromise, this plan suggested a bicameral congress that consisted of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each state would send an equal number of representatives to the Senate and one person per each 30,000 citizens of a state would be sent to the House of Representatives (Longely, 2016). This would combine the ideas of both the Virginia and New Jersey Plan and allow for equal representation of all states. On July 16, 1787, the Great Compromise was adopted by all members on the …show more content…

Those who supported the Constitution were known as Federalists, while the opposing side were termed Anti-Federalists. Most Federalists were wealthy, well-educated, and strong leaders (like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin), while Anti-Federalists consisted mostly of farmers and lower class citizens (such as Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry). The Federalists simply could not believe the virtue of man was a strong and reliable enough foundation for a government, so they rooted for a structure of checks and balances. They levied for a strong, central government that contained the majority of the power over the states. Anti-Feds believed such a government would create a tyranny, so the states should retain most of the supremacy. If a government became too strong, liberty would be destroyed. Anti-Federalists also did not agree on the Federalists framework for the Congress. They thought there would be too few representatives in Congress to represent the great diverse views of all