Question

Explain how the U.S. Constitution and its first 10 amendments represents a compromise between the different regional and political differences of the late 18th century in America. Support your answer with reference to the different parts of the Constitution.

Answer 1

"REPRESENTATION" remained the core issue for the Philadelphia Convention.

After still more deeply divided argument, a proposal put forward by delegates from Connecticut (a small population state ), struck a compromise that narrowly got approved. The UPPER HOUSE (or SENATE) would reflect the importance of state sovereignty by including two people from each state regardless of size. Meanwhile, the LOWER HOUSE (the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES) would have different numbers of representatives from each state determined by population. Representation would be adjusted every ten years through a federal census that counted every person in the country.

By coming up with a mixed solution that balanced state sovereignty and popular sovereignty tied to actual population, the Constitution was forged through what is known as the CONNECTICUT COMPROMISE. In many respects this compromise reflected a victory for small states, but compared with their dominance in the Congress under the Articles of Confederation it is clear that negotiation produced something that both small and large states wanted.

Other major issues still needed to be resolved, however, and, once again, compromise was required on all sides. The different state constitutions had created different rules about how much property was required for white men to vote. To balance this opening, the two Senators in the upper house of the national government would be elected by the STATE LEGISLATURES. Finally, the PRESIDENT (that is, the executive branch) would be elected at the state level through an ELECTORAL COLLEGE whose numbers reflected representation in the legislature.

To modern eyes, the most stunning and disturbing constitutional compromise by the delegates was over the issue of slavery. Their fierce opposition allowed no room for compromise and as a result the issue of slavery was treated as a narrowly political, rather than a moral, question.

The delegates agreed that a strengthened union of the states was more important than the Revolutionary ideal of equality. This was a pragmatic, as well as a tragic, constitutional compromise, since it may have been possible (as suggested by George Mason's comments) for the slave state of Virginia to accept some limitations on slavery at this point.

Slave trade
The slave trade was always a controversial issue in the history of the United States.
The proposed constitution actually strengthened the power of slave states in several important respects. Through the "FUGITIVE CLAUSE," for example, governments of free states were required to help recapture runaway slaves who had escaped their masters' states. Slave states wanted to have additional political power based on the number of human beings that they held as slaves. Delegates from free states wouldn't allow such a blatant manipulation of political principles, but the inhumane compromise that resulted meant counting enslaved persons as three-fifths of a free person for the sake of calculating the number of people a state could elect to the House of Representatives.

After hot summer months of difficult debate in Philadelphia from May to September 1787, the delegates had fashioned new rules for a stronger central government that extended national power well beyond the scope of the Articles of Confederation.