The Constitution and proportional representation

I'm Walter Isaacson of the aspen institute and i'm here with professor Joe Ellis and we've been talking about the Constitution we've talked many times about the various compromisers including on slavery and on whether it was a national government or collection of state governments but there's one big compromise they have to make at the end which involves whether or not they're equal votes per state or proportional representation what do they do well they argue about this for most of the summer and it causes enormous difficulty because each side has got its positions dug in the one side is the Madison side the Nationalists they want both branches of the Congress to be elected proportionally they wanted to send it to be a smaller group but proportional the other want both branches to be by state well it looks pretty clear and retrospect what the proper compromise is going to have to be but before making it it's almost looks like the Constitutional Convention is going to self-destruct and but it is the grand compromise some call it the Connecticut compromise because it was originally proposed by Connecticut and Franklin then comes and proposes it again it is that representation will be proportional in the House of Representatives and then in the Senate well let's look at the document right here it says secretary the Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state big or little they all get to as a Rhode Island gutsy gets as many as Virginia exactly and that's because it was they were sort of saying we're a Federation of different states that's what this government represents states as well as people and so you know like like now Vermont has as many senators as California but then they say we also represent people until when they say the House of Representatives it says that the representatives shall be apportioned among the states based on their population so it's a proportional representation that's of course when they get into the complexity of what is the population of the state and they do that very problematic compromise tree chefs three fifths and all persons meaning slaves count when you're counting the population one of the things that its troubles them is even in the proportional representation in the house each congressional district is defined as having 30,000 representatives compared to what they're used to that's really too many people to represent but they're used to being able to go up to their representative and the state government look them in the eye you give them a hand out and it's almost a face-to-face world where this is why moving to a larger scale changes what representation is going to me but it does also solve the issue or fudge the issue of whether or an of states or we've the people all directly elected a national government because they say there's a house in the Senate and those are two diff our cake and eat it too you know compromise is not always a bad thing some thought when they left the convention that they had compromised too much but it's kind of interesting if you read let us say Franklin speech at the end of the convention one of the great speeches he celebrates the notion that compromises might not make great heroes but they do make great democracies mm-hmm tell us about Franklin's letter well I think it's one of the most eloquent letters ever written by Franklin which means it's one of the most delicate letters in American letters but it really is a statement about humility and the need to recognize that your own certainty is sometimes wrong you know when he was a young trades when they made a list of virtues he had 12 of them in one of his friend said hey you've forgotten one humility you should have and forever sent Franklin you know he says for having live long I've experienced many instances being obliged by better information to full of consideration to change opinions even on important subject in other words be open be willing accomplice have the humility to think that the person next to you might be right and i love the for having lived long he's 81 which is almost going to dice the age of the other day average age of the grandfather amongst the father's in these sentiments sir I agreed to this constitution with all its faults if they are such because I think a general government necessary for us and there is no form of government by but that what may be a blessing to the people if well administered blah blah blah blah blah but he's really saying I accept this with all of its faults because i'm not sure their faults because my judgment is not is it's a dab'll yeah it's totally fallible and he ends up on the whole sir i cannot help express into us that every member of the convention who may still have objections to it would with me on this occasion doubt a little have his own infallibility and to make manifest are you naina unanimity put his name to this instrument there are certain people no matter how eloquent this is who can't do that and we still see it today people who say I can't admit to my own fallibility therefore i'm not going to make a compromise right thank you