What conflict at the Constitutional convention did the great compromise resolve?

Answer 1

Connecticut delegate Roger Sherman introduced the Great Compromise to resolve the problem of providing the states with fair legislative representation in Congress.

The larger states supported Edmund Randolph's and James Madison's Virginia Plan, which called for two houses of Congress in which states were allotted representatives based on the population of free citizens. This plan created an imbalance of power favoring the large states.

The smaller and less populated states supported William Paterson's New Jersey Plan, which would create a single legislative house in which each state would receive a single vote per state, similar to the structure of the Continental Congress under the Articles of Confederation. This plan gave each state an equal voice, regardless of the number of citizens affected.

Sherman's Great Compromise, also known as the Connecticut Compromise, created a hybrid of the Virginia and New Jersey Plans. Sherman proposed a bicameral (two house) legislature, as Madison and Edmund's did, but modeled one house on the New Jersey Plan and the other on the Virginia Plan. The Upper House would have two representatives from each state, allowing equal each state an equal vote regardless of population, as in the New Jersey Plan. The Lower House would apportion representatives according to each state's population, as calculated by census every ten years, as in the Virginia Plan.

Apportionment by population protected the citizens' interests; equal representation preserved the balance of power between states.

The Upper House later became known as the US Senate; the Lower House became the US House of Representatives.

The Great Compromised passed by a vote of five states to four after eleven days of deliberation, but didn't completely satisfy the southern states, whose population consisted largely of slaves, not free citizens. This issue was subsequently addressed by the Three-Fifths Compromise, which allowed the census to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of apportionment of representatives in the House of Representatives.

Answer 2

The Great Compromise (also known as The Conneticut Compromise) settled the problem of the different forms of government presented in the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and (Alexander) Hamilton's Plan (also known as the British Plan). The form of government agreed upon is very similar to the government America has today.