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In our previous post, we learned what the Founding Fathers would think about the Bill of Rights. Today, Madison and Sherman speculate about what would happen if their compromise endured for centuries—with consequences neither could have foreseen.

Source: Madison’s Notes on the Debates in the Federal Convention — July 16, 1787

In the summer of 1787, the Constitutional Convention nearly collapsed over a single question: How should states be represented in Congress? James Madison’s Virginia Plan called for proportional representation in both houses. Roger Sherman of Connecticut—a self-taught cobbler who signed all four founding documents—proposed the compromise that saved the Union: proportional representation in the House, equal representation in the Senate. Madison vigorously opposed it. Sherman prevailed. Here, having glimpsed a future where their arrangement persists across centuries, the two men resume their argument.

*   *   *

Montpelier, September 3, 1817

Dear Sherman,

I have had occasion to reflect upon our contest at Philadelphia thirty years past, and I confess that recent contemplation has only deepened my original misgivings. You will recall that I opposed with considerable vigor the equality of suffrage in the Senate. I argued then that such an arrangement contradicted every principle of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail.

I have lately been visited by a strange vision of distant futurity—a republic grown to encompass not thirteen but perhaps fifty states, stretching from our Atlantic shores to a western ocean I can scarcely imagine. In this vision, the disproportion between large and small states has grown monstrous. Where Virginia was perhaps eleven times the population of Delaware, I beheld one state containing near seventy times the souls of another—yet both sending equal voices to the Senate.

Can you tell me, my old adversary, how such an arrangement serves the republican principle? How can the sense of the majority prevail when the minority commands equal power?

Your humble servant,

Madison

*   *   *

New Haven, September 18, 1817

Dear Madison,

Your letter finds me in the condition common to old men—surprised to be consulted on matters I thought long settled. You speak of republican principle as though it were a single thing. But I remind you: we did not create a democracy. We created a federal republic, a union of sovereign states. The Senate was never meant to represent the people directly. It was meant to represent the states—to preserve their dignity and protect their interests against absorption by their larger neighbors.

You complain of disproportion. But consider: in your vision of fifty states, have the small ones been swallowed up? Have they lost their character, their laws, their distinct interests? If not, then the Senate has done its work. The farmer in a small state has concerns as legitimate as the merchant in a large one. Should his voice be silenced merely because fewer neighbors share his condition?

I remind you of what I said at Philadelphia: the people should have as little to do as may be about the government. They want information and are constantly liable to be misled. The Senate provides a check upon popular passion—which you yourself once feared.

Your old friend,

Sherman

*   *   *

Montpelier, October 4, 1817

Dear Sherman,

You defend the Senate as a protector of state sovereignty, but I saw something else in my vision that troubles me greatly. The senators of this distant future are no longer chosen by state legislatures—they are elected directly by the people! The very connection between Senate and state government that you championed has been severed. The senators represent not their state governments but their state populations—yet still with equal suffrage regardless of numbers.

What then remains of your argument? If the Senate no longer embodies the sovereignty of states as political entities, but merely represents unequal populations with equal voices, how is this anything but a violation of republican arithmetic? Half the nation’s people, I observed, were represented by a mere eighteen senators, while the other half commanded more than eighty.

Troubled still,

Madison

*   *   *

New Haven, October 22, 1817

Dear Madison,

You astonish me. They have altered the method of choosing senators? This I do not foresee, but I confess it would weaken my position considerably. If senators no longer answer to their state governments, then indeed they have become something other than what we intended—representatives of geography rather than of sovereignty.

Yet consider this: does not the arrangement still prevent the great cities and populous regions from dictating terms to the countryside? Does it not still require that any national policy must command support across a diversity of places, not merely a concentration of numbers? The farmer and the frontiersman may yet find protection in equal suffrage that they would lose in pure proportion.

Yours in uncertainty,

Sherman

*   *   *

Montpelier, November 8, 1817

Dear Sherman,

Perhaps we have both been right—and both been wrong. You were right that the Convention would have failed without your compromise. I was right that equal suffrage contradicts the republican maxim. What neither of us foresaw is that a constitution may be wise for one age and troublesome for another.

I observed one thing more in my vision: the provision we placed in Article the Fifth, protecting equal suffrage in the Senate from amendment without unanimous consent, has locked our compromise beyond the reach of posterity. They cannot change it even if they wish to. We have bound our descendants to an arrangement made for thirteen states huddled along a coastline—and they must live with it across a continent.

Whether this proves wisdom or folly, I confess I cannot say.

Your fellow architect of imperfection,

Madison

* * * * *

If they only knew… that their Great Compromise would endure for nearly 250 years, locking American governance into an arrangement where Wyoming’s 580,000 citizens wield the same Senate power as California’s 39 million. Madison was right that it violated republican arithmetic. Sherman was right that without it, there would have been no Constitution at all. The compromise that saved the Convention in 1787 has become, for some, a feature that preserves federalism—and for others, a bug that no patch can fix. Article V made certain of that. The founders bound posterity to their bargain, and posterity remains bound.

Questions for Reflection

Madison argued that equal state representation in the Senate violated ‘every principle of republican government.’ Sherman countered that the Senate protects smaller states from domination. Whose argument holds up better in a nation of fifty states with vastly unequal populations?

The 17th Amendment (1913) changed senators from state-appointed to popularly elected. Did this change strengthen or weaken Sherman’s original justification for equal representation?

Article V makes equal Senate suffrage the only constitutional provision that cannot be amended without unanimous state consent. Was this wise—or did the founders bind posterity too tightly to an 18th-century bargain?

Share your thoughts in the comments—and if this made you think, please click ‘Like’!