This compound design distributed political influence among people, states, and institutions. It made agreement between differently constituted bodies necessary and prevented one current national majority from controlling every stage in the same way. It also produced unequal voting influence. A citizen in a small state shares two senators with far fewer people than a citizen in a large state, while the electoral formula carries that equal-state component into presidential selection. These are consequences of the design, not counting errors.

Slavery distorted the population-based parts of the system. The Three-Fifths Clause increased House representation for slaveholding states without giving enslaved people political rights, and the additional House seats increased their electoral votes as well. The clause therefore linked an ostensibly population-based chamber to coercive exclusion. It is not enough to say that the Constitution balanced "people and states." A complete account asks which people counted, who could vote, who controlled the resulting offices, and how constitutional rules converted population into power.

Different compromises should be evaluated by the problem they addressed and the interests they protected. The Connecticut Compromise made a union of differently sized states institutionally possible by dividing representational principles between chambers. The Electoral College created an indirect, state-based executive selection process. The slavery-related rules secured sectional agreement by protecting bondage and expanding slaveholding influence. Compromise is a method of reaching agreement, not proof that the result is fair. A strong analysis identifies the constituency represented, the allocation rule, the beneficiary, and the cost.

Video lesson: Constitutional Compromises: Crash Course Government and Politics #5