The Great Compromise: The Constitutional Convention In 1787

Brennan Baker David Gosbee United States Government and Politics September 9, 2024 The Great Compromise June 15, 1787, a day that can be considered the structural building block to our political system we know as, “Congress.” On this day, the Constitutional Convention in 1787 took place. There were several pivotal components of this convention, with heated debates about the New Jersey and Virginia Plan, but one compromise, “The Great Compromise.” However, can it truly be considered a compromise? A compromise can be defined as, “something intermediate between or blending qualities of two different things” (Merriam-Webster 2024). That being said, the New Jersey plan lost more of its core principles to the Great Compromise, specifically the New
The representation of these houses was to be based on representation or the amount of money a state could contribute, which would in result allow the larger states to have more power than the smaller states. The plan also proposed three branches of government, legislature supremacy, executive and judiciary were appointed by the legislature, and the ability to veto over state laws. The compromises that were made of this plan was instead of legislative supremacy, there would be a system of checks and balances to keep all branches under control and instead of having strictly houses based on population or contributions there would be two houses but one is based on population, while the other is equal to every state. On the other hand, the New Jersey plan was introduced by William Patterson at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (2019). Contrary to the Virginia Plan, the principles of the New Jersey plan were a unicameral legislature where each state would be equally represented. This was in favor of the small states, ensuring the larger states would not dominate the political
In the Great Compromise, federal laws ruled over state laws. An example in history of the federal laws ruling over the state laws can be seen in the case of Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015. The Federal government ruled that same-sex marriage was protected under the constitution in the 14th amendment and therefore ruled all state laws to allow same-sex marriages (ACLU 2024). All in all, these losses impacted the development of the United States political system by giving us Congress, a bicameral legislature, established federalism within the country, was the first large compromise which gave the layout of how future compromises should occur, and promoted and allowed for the Constitution to be ratified. The two plans differed in many aspects, but ultimately were solved by the Great Compromise. However, the Great Compromise favored the Virginia Plan over the New Jersey plan in many aspects including having a bicameral legislature and establishing the federal government ruling over the state