The Great Compromise

[Keith Broaders]

The most hotly contested debate at the Constitutional Convention was on how the representatives in Congress would be determine. The small states wanted all of the states to be equally represented and the large states wanted representation to be based on the population of each state.

Roger Sherman of Connecticut brokered a compromise where the states would be equally represented in the senate and proportionately represented in the House of Representatives.

This compromise prevented the large states from completely dominating the small states. The states created bicameral legislatures and created a lower house to represent the people and an upper house to represent the counties. Like the Congressional model the states wanted a mechanism to prevent the large metropolitan counties from completely dominating the small rural counties.

This model was changed in the 1960's when a series of Supreme Court opinions created an opportunity for the metropolitan counties to completely dominate the smaller rural counties.