3.5Writing the Constitution

The Constitutional Convention crafted a stronger national government balanced by checks among three branches. The Great Compromise settled a fierce dispute between large and small states, creating a House apportioned by population and a Senate with equal state representation.

Slavery shadowed the proceedings. The notorious Three-Fifths Compromise counted enslaved people as three-fifths of a person for representation, boosting Southern power, and the Constitution shielded the slave trade until 1808. These bargains held the union together at a terrible moral cost. The framers designed a system meant to be durable yet amendable—flexible enough, they hoped, to survive disputes they could not themselves resolve.