Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 99

At the Constitutional Convention (59) in 1787, the founders rejected a confederal system in favor of federalism (60), giving the central government and the states each some power of their own. Those who endorsed this political innovation were known as the Federalists (60), and those who opposed it, the Anti-Federalists (60). Federalists supported a strong central government in which representation was determined by population—a plan, called the Virginia Plan (64), favored by the large states. The Anti-Federalists, suspicious of centralized power, favored the New Jersey Plan (64), which limited power and gave each state equal congressional representation regardless of its size. These issues were resolved in the Great Compromise (64), which created a bicameral legislature, basing representation on population in one house and on equality in the other. The other major conflict among the founders, over how slaves were to be counted for purposes of representation, was resolved by the Three-fifths Compromise (65).