THE GENIUS OF BICAMERAL LEGISLA AND THE COMPROMISES THAT GOT US
I am often struck by the wisdom and determination of our Founding Fathers to create a better form of government. Our system of govern- ment, despite any faults it may have, has endured. That the US Consti- tution came to fruition is amazing given the issues that made compro- mise so difficult. Among those was the formation of a bicameral legisla- ture — a separate Senate and House of Representatives. Separate legislative houses were nothing new in the 1780s. Britain’s House of Commons first met as a body apart from the nobility in 1341. However, the Articles of Confedera- tion set up the US government as a single branch with one house. The government’s weakness, punctu- ated by its difficulty dealing with a revolt by western Massachusetts farmers, led Congress to call a meeting to revise the Articles. This meeting became the Constitutional Convention, from which sprang our current Constitution. Early debates centered on the Virginia Plan presented on May
29, 1787, calling for a lower house elected by voters “proportioned to the Quotas of contribution [each state’s contribution in taxes], or to the number of free inhabitants” and an upper house elected by the lower house from candidates nominated by state legislatures. In addition to the power to make laws, the legislature was to elect a one-term executive and appoint judges to the national courts. Wary of the larger states, smaller states responded with the New Jersey Plan on June 15. This plan would have kept the Articles while substantially expanding their power. Importantly, it proposed a one-house legislature with each state having equal repre- sentation irrespective of population. James Madison, the primary author of the Virginia Plan, argued that domi- nation of the small states by the large states was unlikely, as the large states were so different from one another that they’d never successfully join in unison and dominate the smaller states. Alexander Hamilton took a different tack, arguing that states were artificial entities (he favored a strong central government) and that
small state representatives were just power seekers. Elbridge Gerry denounced the small states, saying that they “never were independent States, were not such now & never could be [ . . . ]. The States & the advo- cates for them were intoxicated with the idea of their sovereignty.” The small states stood their ground. On June 30, Gunning Bedford, Jr., a Delaware delegate, announced to the Convention, “The larger states proceed as if our eyes were already perfectly blind. [ . . . ] I do not, gentle- men, trust you.” Of course, the gentlemen he referred to included Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, and Madison, among others. He claimed that strictly proportional representa- tion would derail the union and threat- ened that the small states “would find some foreign ally of more honor and good faith, who will take them by the hand and do them justice.” This threat was shouted down as treasonous by several delegates. But fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. A decision was put off, and a committee consist- ing of one member from each state, which became known as the Grand
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