Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Delegate Voting At The 1787 Constitutional Convention: The Entanglement Of Economic Interests And The Great Compromise, Emily Highkin

Honors Papers

How did the economic interests of the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention impact delegate voting before and after the resolution of the Great Compromise? This research introduces the use of a delegate’s deviation from his state’s majority as the dependent variable in a model that divides the Convention into two periods around the Compromise. Covariates include several measures of a delegate’s economic interest, proxies for his personal ideology, and controls for his place of origin. Results indicate that three economic interests (owning a greater number of slaves, a home county further from navigable water, and holding public securities) significantly …