All students MUST

answer the question below:

The Virginia Plan proposed a bicameral legislative branch with proportional representation in both Houses of Congress, which would have given states with larger populations more representatives than states with smaller populations, enabling the larger states to dominate the national political agenda. The fact that the populations of the largest southern states included hundreds of thousands of slaves only added to the concerns of the small, and northern, states. A debate ensued over how slaves were to be counted.

 

Take a stance (either 1 or 2 below) and defend it, based upon your interpretation of Collier and Collier. Which option would have likely strengthened the position of the southern states in making policy? How would your selected option have impacted the future prospects the African population going forward? Confine your arguments to the actual context of the debate (1787).

 

1. Slaves should not be counted at all.
2. Slaves should be counted as whole individuals.

 

Select one additional question from the three below:

 

1. It may seem that businesses would prefer not to be regulated by government, and in many cases this is true. However, in other situations they want certain kinds of regulations because they benefit from them; identify what these might be. You might use as a beginning point the regulations governing the Internet illustrated in this chapter and the extent to which its users would logically try to write them or their own advantage.
2. Identify some of the dilemmas that governments face in determining what is “equal protection of the laws” in specific situations. Consider the choices of public school districts, child protection agencies, and services to people with disabilities.
3. Describe the basic challenges to measuring the performance of government agencies, including both activities that are easier to measure and those that are harder, if not impossible, to quantify. Apply this question to public schools, agencies serving the elderly, or the Homeland Security Department.