The matter of the United States Constitution is one of much debate: debate over the legality of the Founders junking the Articles of Confederation and debate over the issues raised during the Constitutional Convention. Many have called the document produced during the convention a document composed of numerous compromises. Those scholars have come to that widely accepted conclusion because of the abundant compromises that the Framers had to agree upon to make the document a feasible option for the government of the people. It was a document that nine out of the thirteen states needed to ratify despite the Anti-federalist opposition. Compromises were made between the large and small states and the North and the South sectors. Many compromises were also made on the question of sovereignty between the state and national governments. From these concessions and compromises, came a document that has managed to last through Anti-federalist opposition, wars, and more than 200 years of change.
While the document was produced with months of argument and disagreement, the delegates to the convention agreed on the necessity of getting rid of the Articles of Confederation, a strengthening of the central government and the urgency of their task to prevent the dissolution of the union. With this in mind, they set out to create a government with the power to tax, to regulate trade, and to enforce the laws they created. They would do this no matter what was required of them, as was shown by historian Edmund S. Morgan, “…every member was willing to give way to majority opinion in order to insure success…” (Morgan, pg 138)
The first order of business was to decide the makeup of the national government. Two plans were presented to the delegates at the Constitutional Convention. The first, presented by James Madison and Edmund Randolph, was the Virginia Plan. This plan called for a bicameral legislature with the lower house being elected by the people. Representation in the lower house would be based on a state’s population. The upper house would be selected by the lower house. The New Jersey Plan government would have a national judiciary and a national executive. This plan tended to favor the larger states, as Virginia was the largest state in the union.
The New Jersey Plan, presented by William Paterson, was a plan based on a “federal” rather than a “national” government. The federal system of government would provide for a union of the states rather than a unitary central government that the national governmental system, proposed by the Virginia Plan, would provide. This would keep the national government weaker, as many of the delegates and constituents wanted, because of their fear of oppression by a strong national government. The New Jersey Plan also kept the existing unicameral, one-house legislature with equal representation for all states. It represented the “one state, one vote” method of government. The Plan gave Congress the power to tax and to regulate commerce. The government was to share power with Congress, each having specific duties assigned to it and each being accountable to the other. This type of plan tended to favor the smaller states, giving them an equal representation even though they had smaller populations. The makeup and formation of the national government was mainly a debate between large and small states. It was a question of equality of the states or equality of the people.
The configuration of the government was hotly contested for a long time and almost caused the fall of the convention, but a compromise was proposed. Often called the Connecticut or Great Compromise, it created the government we still use today. A “grand committee” was created with one delegate from each state and Benjamin Franklin as the chairman. The committee decided on an amalgamation of the Virginia and New Jersey plans. They proposed a bicameral legislature with lower house representation being based on population and the upper house having equal representation, with two members per state. The delegates finally agreed to this compromise and on July 16, 1787 the proposal was approved. The structure of the government debate was, in essence, a major disagreement between the large and small states that was handled very effectively given the fact that the debate was deadlocked for so long.
Within the government configuration and representation debate was the underlying issue of sovereignty. Who was sovereign? Was it the local state governments or was it the national government. If it was the national government how strong should it be? Many people feared a strong national government would become tyrannical and oppress them just as Great Britain had done. Arguments flew between advocates for a strong national government and those who supported state governments. Despite the disagreements, they all knew that the power flowed from the people. This sentiment reflected a type of republicanism that was strongly agreed upon by all members of the convention. This idea allowed for the distribution of powers between the national and state governments. Neither was supreme, but each had separate powers to contribute to the common good of the union. Each government also depended on the other and could not effectively function without the other. Neither was sovereign nor completely powerless. The Constitution was the supreme power in the union and each government was answerable to the Constitution. It was a balance between the two governments. Madison had helped to resolve this issue in his VA Plan; however the feelings of debate were still there given the strong sentiments on both sides. Then with the adoption of the Connecticut Compromise came a sure sense of the shared powers of the national and state governments.
Another component of the Connecticut Compromise involved slavery. Slavery was a controversial issue during the convention, causing much division between the Northern and Southern delegates. One such controversy was the question of population representation for the government formed in the Connecticut Compromise. The Northern states wanted slaves to be counted for taxation purposes but not for representation in the legislature. Of course, the South wanted slaves counted for population but not for taxation. Each side wanted what would benefit them most directly. Again, this was a hotly contested issue that had to be solved by the “grand committee. Just as the “grand committee” had solved the government structure and representation issue, it was now needed to solve the issue of slave representation. Conventional thought at the time believed that a slave was not as productive as a white man. It was said that a slave worked three-fifths as much as a white man and was three-fifths as productive. Based on this idea, the committee came up with the three-fifths compromise. It entailed an agreement that the government would count three-fifths of the slave population for taxation and representation. As with the debate over the structure of the government and representation, the slavery issue was also fiercely contended. The Great Compromise settled issues that were fiercely disputed by two opposing sides: the government representation issue and the slave issue. The Great Compromise was able to pull the debate together and aid in the completion of the Constitution.
In addition to the aforementioned problem, other issues concerning slavery were settled. Because the southern delegates were afraid that the northern states would someday attempt to ban slavery altogether, the convention members agreed that the government could not ban the slave trade for 20 years. Similarly, incoming slaves could not be taxed at more than ten dollars a head and no taxes were to be placed on exports from the United States. Finally, fugitive slaves escaping to free northern states were to be returned to their owners. While the northern delegates were not completely happy with this compromise they knew it was a necessary one in order to form this union.
The Constitution of 1787 was a document made of compromises and concessions. It was sent to the states for ratification and yet another battle ensued. This time the battle was not over the direct issues within the Constitution; rather, the battle was over the final document itself. The fifty-five delegates had produced a document drawn almost completely from their political thinking and ideologies. They had no idea if this document would even be ratified when it was presented to the state conventions.
Once the document was produced opposition to and support for the document immediately formed. Among the supporters of the Constitution, called Federalists, were George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and the father of the Constitution, James Madison. They had helped to draft the Constitution and remained loyal to the principles of the document. They justified their support of the Constitution with the notion that it was the “Constitution or disunion.” (Brinkley, pg 166) Several Federalists wrote essays in support of the Constitution that were called, “The Federalist Papers.” These essays convinced the public that the Constitution was necessary and explained the principles of the Constitution. However, the entire population was not convinced. The Constitution also brought about much opposition, with their supporters being called the Anti-federalists. These people argued that the Constitution would take away the rights that the Revolution had granted them. They felt that the government created by the Constitution might become tyrannical and take away their civil liberties. The people also feared the government might tax excessively and eliminate their state governments. Above all, the opponents to the Constitution were worried about their basic human rights. The major complaint about the Constitution was that it lacked a bill of rights that would protect the individual from the national government. Many states, such as Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York, agreed to ratification based on the notion that Congress would add a bill of rights.
Yet another issue was the fact that the first Congress was to be represented by only fifty-five members, a number that many thought to be unrepresentative of the people. The people complained that the proportionality of people represented in the state governments was higher than the proportionality of people represented in the national government. This meant that even though individual states represented fewer people as a whole than the national government did, the state legislatures were going to have a higher percentage of their people represented in congress than the national congress would have. The constituents wondered how fifty-five men could represent the will of the entire population. They feared that only the views of the wealthy would be heard and the plight of the poorer people would go unheard.
At the heart of the Federalist/Anti-federalist disagreement was the Federalist fear of the unrestrained power of the people and the Anti-federalist fear of the power of a central government. Both sides had legitimate fears based on their past experiences with the British government. They were able to resolve the issue largely because of the Bill of Rights. The addition of that document was, in a sense, another compromise that had the Anti-federalists agreeing to ratify the Constitution with the condition that the Federalists would add a bill of rights to protect their individual liberties. It was a concession on the part of the Anti-federalists, and because of that concession we now have a constitution that has governed our nation effectively and with little change for more than 200 years.
The Constitution would not have been possible without the compromises made by both sides during the convention and during the ratification process. Yes, there were many issues that the delegates agreed upon coming into the convention, like the need to junk the Articles of Confederation and the need to strengthen the central government, but there were far more issues that needed to be resolved by compromise. Given this, no one could argue that the Constitution of 1787 was not a compromise document. Many issues, like the structure of the government and the question of slavery, threatened the success of the convention and the creation of the Constitution and the Union. Without the willingness of the delegates to compromise for the greater good on those issues the convention would have failed and along with it the Union. “They knew…that each provision of the new Constitution was the outcome of extended discussion, of mutual forbearance, concession, compromise…” (Morgan, pg 145) Basically, the fate of the nation all came down to the compromises between the large and small states, the north and the south, and the Federalists and the Anti-federalists. Because of the compromises, we now have a great nation. Leading the way for the creation of the constitution were the great political minds of the time: James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Edmund Randolph, Alexander Hamilton and many others whose political ideologies helped to create the national constitution.
