Compromise During the Convention
WRITING THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
2.3 Outline the issues resolved by compromise during the writing of the Constitution.
On February 21, 1787, in the throes of economic turmoil and with domestic tranquility gone haywire, the Congress called for a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia for "the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." However, many delegates who gathered in sweltering Philadelphia on May 25, 1787, were prepared to take potentially treasonous steps to preserve the union. On the first day of the convention, delegates from Virginia proposed fifteen resolutions creating an entirely new government Oater known as the Virginia Plan). Their enthusiasm, however, was not universal. Many delegates considered these resolutions to be in violation of the convention's charter. They proposed the New Jersey Plan, which took greater steps to preserve the Articles.
These proposals met heated debate on the convention's floor. Eventually, the Virginia Plan triumphed. Although the delegates had established the basic structure of the new government, the work of the Constitutional Convention was not complete. Remaining differences were resolved through a series of compromises, and less than one hundred days after the meeting convened, the Framers had created a new constitution to submit to the electorate for its approval.
The Characteristics and Motives of the Framers
The fifty-five delegates who attended the Constitutional Convention labored long and hard that summer. Owing to the high stakes of their actions, they conducted all of the convention's work behind closed doors. George Washington of Virginia, who commanded the U.S. army during the Revolutionary War, was unanimously elected the convention's presiding officer. He cautioned delegates not to reveal details of the convention even to family members. The delegates agreed to accompany Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania to all of his meals. They feared that the normally gregarious gentleman might get carried away with the mood or by liquor and inadvertently let news of the proceedings slip from his tongue.
All of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention were men; hence, they often are called the "Founding Fathers." This text generally refers to them as the Framers because their work provided the framework for the new government of the United States. The Framers brought with them a vast amount of political, educational, legal, and business experience. Clearly, they were an exceptional lot who ultimately produced a brilliant constitution, or document establishing the structure, functions, and limitations of a government.
Debate about the Framers' motives filled the air during the ratification struggle and has provided grist for the mill of historians and political scientists over the years. In his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States (1913), Charles A Beard argued that the 1780s were a critical period not for the nation as a whole, but rather for business owners who feared that a weak, decentralized government could harm their economic interests.9 Beard argued that merchants wanted a strong national government to promote industry and trade, to protect private property, and to ensure payment of the public debt-much of which was owed to them. Therefore, according to Beard, the Constitution represents "an economic document drawn with superb skill by men whose property interests were immediately at stake."10 Many would say the same today.
By the 1950s, Beard's view had fallen into disfavor when other historians were unable to find direct links between wealth and the Framers' motives for establishing the Constitution. Others faulted Beard's failure to consider the impact of religion and individual views about government.11 In the 1960s, however, another group of historians began to argue that social and economic factors were, in fact, important motives for supporting the Constitution. In 1969, Gordon S. Wood's The Creation of the American Republic resurrected this debate. Wood deemphasized economics to argue that major social divisions explained different groups' support for (or opposition to) the new Constitution. He concluded that the Framers were representative of a class that favored order and stability over some of the more radical ideas that had inspired the American Revolutionary War and the break with Britain.
Who Were the Framers
The Framers of the Constitution spent a summer in Philadelphia in nearly complete secrecy, drafting our nation's supreme code of laws. But, who really were these men? They came from varied jobs, cultures, and viewpoints; some men were slaveholders, many were lawyers, and others had little political experience. These differences influenced many of the compromises seen in the final version of the Constitution.
The Virginia and New Jersey Plans
The less populous states were concerned with being lost in any new system of government in which states were not treated as equals regardless of population. It is not surprising, therefore, that a large state and then a small one, Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, weighed in with ideas about how the new government should operate.
The Virginia Plan called for a national system based heavily on the European nation-state model, wherein the national government derives its powers from the people and not from the member states.
Its key features included:
• Creation of a powerful central government with three branches-legislative, executive, and judicial.
• A two-house legislature with one house elected directly by the people, the other chosen from among persons nominated by the state legislatures.
• A legislature with the power to select the executive and the judiciary.
• An executive selected by the legislature to execute the laws passed by Congress. In general, delegates from smaller states such as New Jersey and Connecticut were
In general, delegates from smaller states such as New Jersey and Connecticut were comfortable with the arrangements under the Articles of Confederation. These states offered another model of government, the New Jersey Plan. Its key features included:
• Strengthening the Articles, not replacing them.
• Creating a one-house legislature with one vote for each state and with representatives chosen by state legislatures.
• Giving Congress the power to raise revenue from duties on imports and from postal service fees.
• Creating an executive branch of multiple persons elected by Congress.
• Creating a national Supreme Court with members appointed for life by the executive.
Constitutional Compromises
The Virginia and New Jersey Plans necessitated serious compromise. Three of these were particularly important. Below, we discuss the Great Compromise, which concerned the form of the new government, the issue of slavery, and the Three-Fifths Compromise, which dealt with representation.
THE GREAT COMPROMISE The most serious disagreement between the Virginia and New Jersey Plans concerned state representation in Congress. When a deadlock loomed, Connecticut offered its own compromise. Representation in the lower house would be determined by population, and each state would have an equal vote in the upper house. Again, a stalemate occurred.
A committee to work out an agreement soon reported back what became known as the Great Compromise. Taking ideas from both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans, it recommended:
• A two-house, or bicameral, legislature.
• In one house of the legislature (later called the House of Representatives), representatives would number fifty-six-no more than one representative for every 30,000 inhabitants. The people would directly elect those representatives.
• That house would have the power to originate all bills for raising and spending money.
• In the second house of the legislature (later called the Senate), each state would have an equal vote, and state legislatures would select the representatives.
• In dividing power between the national and state governments, national power would be supreme.
The Great Compromise ultimately met with the approval of all states in dance. The smaller states were pleased because they received equal representation in the Senate; the larger states were satisfied with the proportional representation in the House of Representatives. The small states then would dominate the Senate, while the large states would control the House. But, because both houses had to pass any legislation, neither body could dominate the other.
THE ISSUE OF SLAVERY Slavery, which formed the basis of much of the southern states' cotton economy, was one of the thorniest issues for the Framers to tackle. To reach an agreement on the Constitution, the Framers had to craft a compromise that balanced southern commercial interests with comparable northern concerns about the evils of slavery. Eventually, the Framers agreed that Northerners would support continuation of the slave trade for twenty more years, as well as a twenty-year ban on taxing exports to protect the cotton trade, while Southerners consented to a provision requiring only a majority vote on navigation laws. The Framers also gave the national government the authority to regulate foreign commerce and agreed that the Senate would have the power to ratify treaties by a two-thirds majority, which assuaged the fears of southern states, which made up more than one-third of the nation.
One major conflict had yet to be resolved: how to determine state population with regard to representation in the House of Representatives. Slaves could not vote, but the southern states wanted them included in the determination of population numbers. After considerable dissension, the delegates decided that population for purposes of representation and the apportionment of direct taxes would be calculated by adding the "whole Number of Free Persons" to "three-fifths of all other Persons." " All other Persons" was the delegates' euphemistic way of referring to slaves. Known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, this highly political deal ensured that the South would hold 47 percent of the House--enough to prevent attacks on slavery but not so much as to foster the spread of slavery northward.
WHY WAS SLAVERY SUCH AN IMPORTANT ISSUE AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION?
Even a the time of the writing of the Constitution, many Americans struggled to reconcile moral, legal, and economic views on the institution of slavery. Some of the Framers, like Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay, became supporters of abolition. Other Framers, especially those living in the South, objected to efforts to abolish slavery. Although the importation of slaves was banned in 1808, the institution was allowed to continue well into the nineteenth century.
Unfinished Business: Selection of the President
The Framers next turned to fashioning an executive branch. While they agreed on the idea of a one-person executive, they could not settle on the length of the term of office or on the procedure for choosing the chief executive. With Shays's Rebellion still fresh in their minds, the delegates feared putting too much power, including selection of a president, into the hands of the lower classes. At the same time, representatives from the smaller states feared that selection of the chief executive by the legislature would put additional power into the hands of the large states.
Amid these fears, the Committee on Unfinished Portions conducted its sole task: ironing out problems and disagreements concerning the office of chief executive. The committee recommended that the presidential term of office be fixed at four years instead of seven, as had been proposed earlier. The committee also made it possible for a president to serve more than one term.
In addition, the Framers created the Electoral College as a mechanism for selecting the chief executive of the new nation. The Electoral College system gave individual states a key role because each state would choose electors equal to the number of representatives it had in the House and Senate. This step was a vague compromise that removed election of the president and vice president from both the Congress and the people and placed it in the hands of electors whose method of selection would be left to the states. As Alexander Hamilton noted in Federalist No. 68, the Framers fashioned the Electoral College to avoid the "tumult and disorder" they feared could result if the masses were allowed to vote directly for president.
In drafting the new Constitution, the Framers also took care to provide for removal of the chief executive. The House of Representatives assumed the sole responsibility of investigating and charging a president or vice president with "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." A majority vote then would result in issuing articles of impeachment against the president or vice president. In turn, the Senate took on the sole responsibility of trying the president or vice president on the charges issued by the House. To convict and remove the president or vice president from office required a two-thirds vote of the Senate. The chief justice of the United States was to preside over the Senate proceedings in place of the vice president (that body's constitutional leader) to prevent any conflict of interest on the vice president's part.