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The Constitutional Convention opened with a surprise from the Virginia delegation. Edmund Randolph proposed that the delegates create a strong national government instead of revising the Articles of Confederation. He introduced the Virginia Plan, which was largely the work of James Madison. The plan called for a two-house legislature, a chief executive chosen by the legislature, and a court system. The members of the lower house of the legislature would be elected by the people. The members of the upper house would be chosen by the lower house. In both houses the number of representatives would be proportional, or corresponding in size, to the population of each state. This would give Virginia many more delegates than Delaware, the state with the smallest population.

Delegates from Delaware, New Jersey, and other small states immediately objected to the plan. They preferred the Confederation system in which all states were represented equally. Delegates unhappy with the Virginia Plan rallied around William Paterson of New Jersey. On June 15, he presented an alternative plan that revised the Articles of Confederation, which was all the convention was supposed to do. The New Jersey Plan kept the Confederation’s one-house legislature, with one vote for each state. Congress, however, could set taxes and regulate trade, powers it did not have under the Articles. Congress would elect a weak executive branch consisting of more than one person. Paterson argued that the Convention should not deprive the smaller states of the equality they had under the Articles. His plan was really designed simply to amend the Articles.

The convention delegates had to decide whether they were simply revising the Articles of Confederation or writing a constitution for a new national government. On June 19, the states voted to work toward a national government based on the Virginia Plan, but they still had to resolve the tough issue of representation that divided the large and small states. As the convention delegates struggled to deal with difficult questions, tempers and temperatures grew hotter. How were the members of Congress to be elected? How would state representation be determined in the upper and lower houses? Were enslaved people to be counted as part of the population on which representation was based?

Under Benjamin Franklin’s leadership, the convention appointed a “grand committee” to try to resolve their disagreements. Roger Sherman of Connecticut suggested what came to be known as the Great Compromise. A compromise is an agreement between two or more sides in which each side gives up some of what it wants. Sherman proposed bicameral legislature. In the lower house, the House of Representatives, the number of seats for each state would vary according to the state’s population. The representatives would be elected directly by voters. In the upper house, the Senate, each state would have two members. Senators would be chosen by state legislatures.

Another major compromise by the delegates dealt with counting enslaved people. Southern states wanted to include slaves in their population counts to gain delegates in the House of Representatives. Northern states objected to this idea because enslaved people were legally considered property. Some delegates from Northern states argued that slaves, as property, should be counted for the purpose of taxation but not representation. However, neither side considered giving slaves the right to vote.

The committee’s solution, known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, was to count three out of every five slaves for both taxation and representation. On July 12, the convention delegates voted to approve the Three-Fifths Compromise. Four days later, they agreed that each state should elect two senators.

The convention needed to resolve another difficult issue that divided the Northern and Southern states. Having banned the slave trade within their borders, Northern states wanted to prohibit it throughout the nation. Southern states considered slavery and the slave trade essential to their economies. To keep the Southern states in the nation, Northerners agreed that the Congress could not interfere with the slave trade until 1808. Beginning that year, Congress could limit the slave trade if it chose to.