AP® United States History · Unit 3 · Topic 3.8
The Constitutional Convention
The 1787 Constitutional Convention scrapped the Articles of Confederation for an entirely new government, settling the fight between large and small states through compromises that also baked slavery into the nation's representation system.
Delegates gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to fix the Articles of Confederation, which left Congress unable to tax, regulate trade, or enforce its own laws. Shays' Rebellion had just shown how weak the central government really was. Once delegates started talking, they realized patching the Articles wouldn't work, so they threw the document out and started over. That decision alone was radical: a meeting called for repair became a meeting for replacement.
The first fight was over representation. The Virginia Plan, backed by large states, proposed a legislature apportioned by population, giving states like Virginia and Pennsylvania more power. The New Jersey Plan, backed by small states, proposed equal representation per state, protecting places like Delaware and New Jersey from being outvoted. The Great Compromise (Connecticut Compromise) split the difference by creating two chambers: the House, apportioned by population, and the Senate, with two seats per state. Population logic and state-equality logic each got a home.
Slavery forced its own compromises. The three-fifths clause counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for both representation and taxation, inflating southern seat counts in the House and votes in the Electoral College without granting enslaved people any rights. A separate clause protected the Atlantic slave trade from federal interference for twenty years, until 1808. These bargains held the union together on paper, but they built slavery into the structure of national power, a tension that would not stay settled.
Key terms
- Virginia Plan
- A proposal for a national legislature with representation based on state population, favoring large states.
- New Jersey Plan
- A proposal for a national legislature with equal representation per state, favoring small states.
- Great Compromise
- The agreement creating a bicameral Congress: a population-based House and an equal-representation Senate.
- Three-fifths clause
- A constitutional rule counting enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation and taxation.
- Slave trade clause
- A provision barring Congress from banning the Atlantic slave trade until 1808.
Watch it explained
- How it worksCompare the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan side by side on who gets represented.
- How it worksWalk me through the Great Compromise splitting Congress into two chambers with two logics.
- Worked exampleShow me how the three-fifths clause changes the House seat count for Virginia in 1790.
- Going furtherWhat happens to the convention's bargains once the slave trade clause sets a twenty-year clock?
Check yourself
End of topic.