Why Was the Great Compromise Important?

The significant benefit of the Great Compromise is that it led to the building of the Senate and House of Representatives. It is also known as the Connecticut Compromise.

It was done for bicameral federal legislation, which used a dual system of representation: the upper house would have equal representation from every state. Secondly, the lower house would have proportional representation as per the population of the country.

Edmund Randolph offered this plan that offered bicameral legislation to represent every state as per its population or wealth. This plan was made to create the structure of the new government, and for this, all the states gathered. This plan basically proposed that the government would have three branches.

The common people would choose the first government through voting. The first house would select the second one. Lastly, the house would be created by the people nominated by the second house.

William Paterson proposed this plan; it had equal representation in Congress. The good thing about the Great Compromise is that there are a few parts of the New Jersey plan. As per many people, the Virginia plan was great, but its major drawback was that it gave more power to heavily populated states.

The nice part of this program was that they just desired one house and every state to have an equal number of representatives in the house.

There was a heated dispute about the Constitutional Convention in 1787. There was disagreement between small and big states about power and other things. Because of this disagreement, there was a threat that it might derail the ratification of the U.S constitution.

The new position was that the Virginia plan had three houses, whereas the New Jersey plan wanted one house with equal representation. After many considerations, the explication came in the form of a settlement proposed by statesmen Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut.

On July 16, 1787, they proposed a deal and the great part about the plan was that it included the best from both the measures. As per the Great Compromise, there would be two national legislatures in a bicameral Congress.

It would become the House of Representatives and the Senate. The members of the House of Representatives would be allocated according to the state’s community and chosen by the people.

But, the upper house was more inclined to the New Jersey plan. Therefore, it was decided that its state would have two representatives irrespective of the size of the state, and state legislatures would select Senators. The 17th amendment would later alter that and enable people to vote for every Senator.

This proposal included everything related to tax, spending and fund allocation from the Lower house. The discussion went on for 11 days; initially, the plan was rejected but then approved by a slim margin on a vote of 5 to 4.

The plan was approved on July 23, 1787. The U.S came up with the bicameral Congress. Later, Alexander Hamilton explained the complete program to the people and gained acceptance from the entire country.