The Great Compromise: The Constitutional Convention Of 1787

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The Constitutional Convention which met on May to September of 1787 was a result of weak policies adopted by the continental congress in 1777 during the time of the Revolutionary War. In other words, the policies and governing documents that were in place could not meet the needs of the United States as an official country and it laid a structure that created a weak national government while giving more power and authority to strong state governments. Serious issues such as the national government being unable to tax, regulate commerce or even enforce the laws that were passed just illuminated the compromises that the stakeholders had to make so as to streamline the country’s constitution. Subsequently, a number of concessions developed during the convention with delegates being compelled to give ground on numerous standings so as to develop a constitution that was acceptable to the 13 states that were present at the time. In total, there were five key compromises that rose from the debate among which the most significant one was the Great Compromise. It not only laid the …show more content…
These two plans created the Great compromise whereby both proposals were combined. What makes the great compromise so fundamental is that it helped to create new branches of the government. The Virginia plan was pushing towards creating a strong national government with three branches. The Judiciary, legislature, and executive were all conceived through the compromise. The plan proposed the legislature to have two chambers in Congress: The Senate and House of Representatives . One directly elected by the people while the other would be selected by the first house from people nominated by the state legislatures. Additionally, the national legislature was responsible for choosing the president and national