Great Compromise
Before the Great Compromise in 1787, one of the thorniest political issuesduring the Grand Convention and the early days of American government washow the States should be represented in the national government. Before theRevolution, each colony acted independently and governments were primarilylocal. Now that the union has been formed, a whole new concept ofgovernment must be drawn up. A strong national government is necessary inso large a geographical nation as ours; otherwise many states would beisolated from the political process and national infrastructures would beimpossible to manage. However, local governments must also remain strong.There must be a balance between the powers of individual states and thepowers of the federal government. However, how this balance is to beachieved is causing great controversy in our new nation. As a citizen of the new United
States with dense populationsshould have access to more federal funds. States, I fully supported the VirginiaPlan's call to proportional representation. Therepresentatives that serve in Washington have a responsibility to keepstate and local issues a priority. While the federal government should bestrong and central, it is the people who should truly have the power. Having too few representatives per state strips power from the people andplaces it in the hands of a few elite politicians. An ideal solution to this controversy is to create a bicamerallegislature in which the lower house (House of Representatives) is drawnfrom a proportional representation of the states. Moreover, in denselypopulated states, the demographics are more diverse and the people need tohave a proportional number of elected officials to represent the needs ofspecific communities. Theupper house, or Senate, is not based on proportional representation. The more people that live in a given state, the morerepresentation is needed in the federal government in order for the nationto be a true republican democracy. Each state should be able to runits own affairs for a majority of political and social issues. The numberof the elected officials from each state would depend on that state'spopulation. This is because largerpopulations need more infrastructures per capita. Rather, the Senate overlooks the population size of the states and insteadis comprised of a set number of representatives (senators) for each state. The federalgovernment should not become too powerful. For example, large states would be able towithhold funds from smaller states if representation was only proportional.
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,
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