United States History Student Edition

BIOGRAPHY ROGER SHERMAN, (1721–1793)

Paterson argued that the Convention should not deprive smaller states of the equality they had under the Articles. The New Jersey Plan gave Congress the power to set taxes, regulate trade, and elect an executive branch made up of more than one person. In sum, the New Jersey Plan favored a more powerful government than existed under the Articles—but a less powerful government than the Virginia Plan proposed. 7 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING 1. Explaining Why did New Jersey’s delegates object to the Virginia Plan? 2. Summarizing Summarize the New Jersey Plan in a single sentence. Agreeing to Compromise GUIDING QUESTION What compromises were reached in the new Constitution? The delegates had to decide whether to revise the Articles of Confederation or write a new constitution. On June 19, the states voted to work toward a new constitution based on the Virginia Plan. They still had to deal with the difficult issue of representation, which divided the large and small states. Important Compromises The Convention appointed a committee to settle the issue. Roger Sherman of Connecticut suggested what would later be called the Great Compromise. A compromise is a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each party giving up some demands. Sherman’s compromise proposed different representation in the two-house legislature. In the upper house—the Senate—each state would have two members. That is, the states would be equal in representation. In the lower house—the House of Representatives—the number of seats for each state would vary based on the state’s population. That is, citizens would be equal in representation. Delegates from the South and the North disagreed on whether—and how—to count each state’s enslaved population. Including enslaved people as part of a state’s population would give Southern states more seats in Congress.

Roger Sherman was an American politician who represented the state

of Connecticut at the Constitutional

Convention. Originally from Massachusetts, Sherman moved to Connecticut as

The Southern states liked this, but the Northern states did not. At the same time, counting each enslaved person would increase each Southern state’s taxes, because states were to be taxed based on their populations. The South was not happy about this. As a solution, delegates agreed to what was called the Three-Fifths Compromise. Every five enslaved persons would count as three people in a state’s population total. This total would be the basis for setting taxes and representation in Congress. a young man after the death of his father. There, he earned a degree in law and served for several terms as a member of the colonial legislature. During the 1770s, Sherman strongly supported independence from British rule and participated in the colonists’ fight for freedom in a number of ways. He served as a delegate at the Second Continental Congress, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and helped draft the Articles of Confederation. At the Constitutional Convention, Sherman famously devised the agreement that became known as the Great Compromise, which proposed dividing the legislature into two houses with different forms of representation. Sherman’s plan helped to resolve a major disagreement between delegates and allowed the drafting of the new Constitution to continue. Analyzing How was Roger Sherman’s leadership important in the early years of the United States?

compromise a settlement of a dispute that is reached by each party giving up some demands

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First Governments and the Constitution 187