Compromise
Ruixuan Liu
Compromise can avoid conflicts and ensure stability within the country. There have been many compromises in American political history, and these compromises have played a major role in the development of the United States. For example, the Great Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Commerce Compromise.
The Great Compromise was appointed during the 1787 Constitutional Convention. There was a contradiction between the large population states and the small population states. Each state wanted the policy which benefit its own in the constitution. Therefore, the large population states required a population-based representation of the Congress. Small population states hoped that each state has equality votes. The great compromise combined two plans and it decided to set up two houses to safeguard the interests of both parties. One of them was the Senate, every state has equal representatives in the Senate. The other one was the House of Representatives, which is based on the population from state, so each state has different numbers of representatives in the House of Representatives.
The Three-Fifths compromise was appointed because the conflict over slavery between the southern states and the northern states. Because the southern states have a large number of slaves, the southern states required slaves to be counted as part of the population representatives, but not be counted as tax populations. The northern states have a small population, so they demanded that slaves should be counted as part of the tax population, but not counted as population representatives. In order to solve the problem, the three-fifths compromise was proposed. This compromise decided that every five slaves were counted as three people involved in the population representatives, also every five slaves were counted as three people to pay taxes to the nation.
Commerce compromise was also one of the important compromises. Commerce compromise was raised because of the dissatisfaction of the North and South states in business development. The northern states were dominated by industrialized, while the southern states were dominated by agriculture. The northern states produced a lot of goods, but the southern states import goods from the British, which causes the goods produced in the north could not be sold. The northern states required the government to impose import tariffs to ensure that the South purchases goods manufactured in the North, and also tariffs on export raw materials. The South did not agree to an increase in tariffs on export raw materials which harms their interests. According to the ideas of both parties, the compromise proposed to tariff only on imports from foreign countries, but did not tariff on exports from the United States.
I agree with the use of compromise. Under these situations, if no compromise is made, it will undermine the unity and stability within the states. In order to keep the country united, a compromise must be reached. Just as the great compromise, the Great Compromise ensured the continuance of the Constitutional Convention and the unity of states. The three-fifths compromise stopped the dispute between the large population states and the small population states on slave computing. And the Commerce Compromise, the representatives of the North and the South reached a compromise and promoted solidarity among the states.