The Great Compromise Research Paper

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The Great Compromise represented the interest of those who wanted a strong national government and those who wanted states to have a strong voice by establishing a two-house Congress. History Alive, pg. 152 states, “The second house, the Senate, would represent the states. Each state would have two senators, to be elected by their state legislatures.” The Senate represented those who wanted a strong national government-the smaller states- because since their population was tiny compared to the massive population of the larger states, the Senate will make sure that all the states have an equal say in Congress. No large states could crush any small states because all the states have an equal say so everything was fair. According to History Alive, …show more content…

“By the time of the convention, nine-tenths of the slaves in the United States lived in the South,” (History Alive, pg153.). The Three-Fifths Compromise allowed the enormous number of slaves in the south to partially count when determining a state’s population, increasing the population for states in the south and giving them more representatives in the House of Representatives then they would’ve without the counting of slaves. The southern states gained more representatives as a result of the increase in population, giving them more power in the House of Representatives. According to History Alive, pg.153, “Delegates from the North challenged this idea. Were slaves to be considered people with a right to be represented in Congress? Or were they property?” The Three-Fifths Compromise gave slaves representation in the south but the southern states did not gain a massive amount of representatives in the House of Representatives because slaves did not count as one full person. The northern states gained a small amount of representatives from the Three-Fifths Compromise but the compromise also restrained the southern states from gaining too many representatives. Therefore, the southern and northern states were represented by the Three-Fifths Compromise where slaves were counted as three-fifths of a