Glossary on the Republic

Great Compromise

Founding

The entire United States Congress exists in the shape it does because of a deal struck to stop the Constitutional Convention from falling apart.

In the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, the convention nearly broke over a single question: how should states be represented in the new Congress? Big states wanted representation by population. Small states wanted every state counted equally. Neither would budge.

The deadlock was real enough to threaten the whole project. The Virginia Plan favored the large states with population-based seats; the New Jersey Plan favored the small states with equal seats. Tempers frayed in the summer heat.

The way out came from Connecticut's delegates, Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, which is why it is also called the Connecticut Compromise. Give each side one house. The House of Representatives would be apportioned by population, satisfying the big states. The Senate would have two seats per state, satisfying the small ones.

Adopted in July 1787 by the narrowest of margins, the compromise saved the convention and created the bicameral Congress we still have, where a bill must pass both a population-based chamber and a state-equal one.

Origin

The 1787 agreement creating a population-based House and a state-equal Senate; also the Connecticut Compromise.

Why it matters

The Great Compromise is why Wyoming and California have the same two senators despite vastly different populations, and why the House looks so different from the Senate. It was not anyone's ideal. It was the deal that kept the room together, and it built the basic architecture of American government in a single bargain.