Constitutional Convention Vocabulary

An agreement worked out at the Constitutional Convention establishing that a state's population would determine representation in the lower house of the legislature, while each state would have equal representation in the upper house.

• great compromise

• compromise

• New Jersey Plan

• Virginia Plan

All whites plus three-fifths of the slave population would be counted for both representation and taxation. Native Americans were not counted.

• Virginia Plan

• New Virginia Plan

• Three-fifth compromise

• Great Compromise

(of a legislative body) having two branches or chambers.

• bicameral

• unicameral

• chambers

• compromise

one of the two houses of the United States Congress and is often referred to as “the House.” The number of representatives each state has in the House is proportional to its population.

• House of Representatives

• Senate

• Congress

• Democracy

100 members and is the upper house of the United States Congress

• Senate

• House of Representatives

• Virginia Plan

• Congress

A formal plan of government

• Constitution

• Declaration of Independence

• Peace Treaty

• Magna Carta

The meeting of state delegates in 1787 in Philadelphia called to revise the Articles of Confederation. It instead designed a new plan of government, the US Constitution.

• squad

• Constitutional Convention

• Common Sense

• media room

Plan of government, in which states got a number of representatives in Congress based on their population

• Virginia Plan

• New Jersey Plan

• Great Compromise

• Florida Plan

proposed a single-chamber congress in which each state had one vote.

• Virginia Plan

• New Jersey Plan

• Florida Plan

• Compromise

agreement between two or more sides in which each side gives up some of what it wants

• compromise

• great compromise

• Virginia plan

• New Jersey plan