Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Roger Sherman -- a Connecticut delegate to The Constitutional Convention and the only founding father who signed all four key U.S. founding documents: the Continental Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution -- proposed on July 16, 1787 a plan of governance that solved a seemingly intractable problem. The larger and smaller states had been engaging in a representational debate that had brought the national Convention to a standstill. The solution to the problem, called at the time The Great Compromise or the Connecticut Compromise, was one of those solutions that really did solve a pressing problem.   The proposal by Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth, also a delegate to the national convention, answered the question: How should representation in the new Constitutional national Senate be apportioned among large and small states?   The large states believed that representation should be based proportionally on the contribution ...