How Our Republic Became a Democracy

[Keith Broaders]

At the Constitutional; Convention the most hotly comstested debate was over how the states would be represented in Comgress.

Under the Articles of Comfederation all of the states were equally represemted. The states like Virginia which had a large population believed that equal represenmtation favored the small states and gave them an unfair advantage over the large states. James Madison proposed what became known as tthe Virginia Plan proposed that seats in the House of Representatives to be allocared based on the population of the state...

The Virginia Plan, which favored the large states was unacceptable to the small states and neither side was wulling to budge.

Roger Sherman od Connecticut broke the impass when he proposed a compromise that would create a bicameral legislature with a House of Representatives based on proportional representation and a Senate based on equal representation.

This compromise fave the large states a greater voice  in the House of Representatives and gave the small states an equal voice in the Senate.

When  the 17th Amendment was fraudulently ratified the state legislatures lost their voice in the senate which turned the our bicameral legislature into a unicameral legislatire with two houses representing the people.

In Article V there is an amendment protection clause stating  . . . . . .  no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

When the 17th A,mendment was fraudulently ratified our bicameral legislature oir republic became a democracy.

In the 1960's the Supreme Court riled that it was uncomstitutional for the counties of a state to be equally represented in their states legislature. The court rupef that the states could be equally represented in the U.S. Senate but it was unconstitutional for the counties to be equally represented in the states. 

The Supreme Court rulings on apportionment in the legislatures of thee states was ourside of their Constitutional jurisdiction.