Should small states have the same influence in government as large states?

This is, of course, a matter of personal opinion.  If you believe that the United States is a country made up of states, then the answer should be “yes.”  If you believe that the US is a country made up of individual people, then the answer should be “no.”  It is partly for this reason that the Constitution sets up a system where the small states do have the same amount of power in the Senate but do not have the same amount of power in the House.

Some people feel that our country is a union of states.  They say that the states came together to create the United States and that therefore the states should be important political entities.  We Americans tend to believe that everyone should be equal.  You would not have a student body government where the people with the best grades, or the athletes and cheerleaders, got more say than other people.  You would not have a town government where the richest people got more votes than the poorer people.  The same, then, goes for states.  If the states get together to form a union, then all the states are equal.  They should all be treated the same just as all people in your student body should have the same amount of influence on the government.  In this view, the states are almost sovereign political units and should have equal amounts of influence regardless of the size of their population.

On the other hand, we can note that the Constitution begins “We the people,” not “we the states.”  We can say that the US is a country of individuals who came together to become one.  In this case, states are just a convenient way of splitting up the administration of our country.  Our country, in this view, is made up of people and every person should have the same amount of influence on government.  In this view, it would be unfair to give Wyoming the same amount of influence on government as California has when California’s population is something like 70 times larger than Wyoming’s.  If we gave the two states equal influence, Wyoming’s people would be 70 times more powerful than California’s on a person-by-person basis.  This is clearly unfair.

Thus, it is possible to argue this question either way.  What do you think is the correct answer?