Disagreements That Occurred at the Constitutional Convention 1787, Essay Example

At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, there were many disagreements among the writers of the United States Constitution. However, the most significant disagreements included the power between the states and the federal government and how the power of each state would be represented in Congress, whether or not slaves should be counted as people as figures for population of states, whether taxes should be imposed to protect the country against foreign competitors, whether slaves should be continued to be allowed to be imported into the country, and the means by which the presidents should be elected.

The document that resolved the argument about how each state would be represented in Congress in addition to related issues on the topic, the Great Compromise was made. Before this agreement, there were two contrasting ideas, the Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan, in which there would either be equal representation for each state or the representation would depend on the size of the population. The Great Compromise combined these plans and created two chambers of Congress, the House and the Senate. The Senate was based on equal representation and the House was based on population representation.

The three-fifths compromise solved the issue of how slaves should be treated as members of the population by considering each slaves three-fifths of a person. This number would impact House representation but little else because slaves were still considered property. This agreement occurred mainly between Northern and Southern states because if slaves were considered people, the South would benefit, and if they were not, the North would benefit.

In addition, the Constitutional Convention passed the Commerce Compromise in which taxes would only be placed on imports from foreign countries rather than US exports. The Slave Trade Compromise didn’t ban slavery with the assumption that Congress would later ban it as a result of voting. Lastly, the electoral college was decided upon as a process in which the president would be elected.

References

Claremont Institute. (n.d.). The Constitution and the Idea of Compromise. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/georgewashington/classroom/index3.html

Kelly, M. (n.d.). Key Compromises of the Constitutional Convention. Retrieved from http://americanhistory.about.com/od/usconstitution/tp/compromises-of-the-constitutional-convention.htm