The Great Compromise

The Great Compromise was the solution to struggle of representation in the Legislative Branch during the U.S Constitutional Convention in 1787. The states with bigger populations like Virginia favored the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan called for representation based on the amount of people living in each state. Larger states favored this plan because they would have more power in making laws. On the other hand, smaller states like Delaware favored the New Jersey Plan, under which each state would send the same amount of representatives to Congress. Smaller states favored this because it meant equal power for everyone. This problem was solved by Roger Sherman. He proposed a bicameral legislature. Each state, as suggested by Sherman, would send an equal amount of Representatives to the House of Senate, and one representative for every 30,000 citizens to the House of Representatives. Today, the variable number of members of the House of Representatives is based on the State’s population as reported in the most recent decennial census. The process of determining the number of members of the House from each state is known as apportionment. Apportionment is the process of allocating the 435 House seats among the states according to each state’s population.