Compromises of the Constitution

Tyler Campbell

Dr. Peters Nwafor

English 102

28 September 2012

Important Compromises of the Constitution

Fifty-five delegates met at the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787. The delegates were charged with the task of amending the Articles of Confederation. However, they quickly decided to jettison the Articles and write a new constitution. Because the delegates came from all parts of the country they differed on a number of key issues. In order to keep the convention going and ensure ratification of the Constitution, the delegates had to compromise a number of times. Compromise was detrimental to the creation of the U.S. Constitution. To understand the compromises of the constitution you must first know what exactly a compromise is. According to dictionary.reference.com a compromise is “a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands” (dictionary.reference.com). There are many different compromises in the constitution, but five compromises stand out from the rest. The Connecticut, three fifths, commerce-slave trade, and executive election compromises were the four major compromises of the constitution. First the Connecticut compromise deals with representation of the states in the union. Second the three fifths compromise determines whether or not slaves should be counted towards the population. Third the commerce compromise deals with tariffs, or the tax on traded goods; and the slave trade compromise deals with just that the inter-continental trade of slaves. Fourth the executive election compromise deals with the presidential elections. All of these compromises were important in the creation of the Constitution of the United States.

The first compromise is known as the Connecticut compromise because of Roger Sherman, a man from Connecticut that first proposed the idea. The idea came about when it appeared that...