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The Achievement of the Philadelphia Convention
reached on a six-year term for the ‘‘second house’’ and on lesser concerns. Nonetheless, there remained a principal obstacle to consensus at
the Convention.
The great stumbling block was the old issue of representation that had
surfaced earlier under the Articles of Confederation. Proponents of the
Virginia Plan wanted to base representation of each State on the State’s
population or its contribution to financial support of the Federal treasury. This was the position of most delegates from the larger and more
wealthy States. By contrast, supporters of the New Jersey Plan wanted all
the States to have equal representation in Congress—as they had enjoyed under the Articles of Confederation, with one State, one vote. This
was the position of most delegates from the smaller States.
Presently a committee of one delegate from each State was chosen to
arrange some compromise on this heated question. Dr. Benjamin Franklin appears to have worked out the committee’s agreement, which in effect gave the small-State delegates more or less what they sought. The
committee’s report was hotly debated, and there were threats on either
side that States might turn to violence if their cause was denied. More
committees were therefore appointed, more concessions were made by
either side, and at length the ‘‘Great Compromise’’ of the Convention
was achieved. Five States voted for the Great Compromise, four against
it, one was divided, and one State’s delegation—New York’s—went home
in dismay. The result was a narrow margin of victory, but a victory that has
nonetheless endured for two hundred years.
The concept of this Great Compromise was originally John Dickinson’s. Other delegates adopted it. Madison opposed it. It is sometimes
known as the ‘‘Connecticut Compromise’’ because Dr. William S. Johnson,
Oliver Ellsworth, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut vigorously urged its
adoption. By the provisions of this Great Compromise, each State would
have an equal vote in the upper house of the Federal legislature. This
meant, in effect, that each State—no matter how large or how small, nor
how rich or how poor—would retain in the upper house (now the Senate) the power that it had enjoyed under the Confederation. This arrangement also satisfied the general desire of the delegates to keep the
size of the Senate small for purposes of debate. If all thirteen States joined