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I do not learn that the proposed Act relating to Vermont has yet gone through all the stages of legislation here; nor can I say whether it will finally pass or not. In truth, it having not been a subject of conversation for some time, I am unable to say what has been done or is likely to be done with it. With the sincerest affection & the highest esteem I have the honor to be, Dear Sir your devoted Serv.t

RIVAL VISIONS OF UNION

Edmund Randolph Introduces the Virginia Plan (May 29, 1787)

PAGE 335

William Paterson Introduces the New Jersey Plan (June 15, 1787)

PAGE 339

Alexander Hamilton Discusses the Two Proposed Plans and Introduces His Own (June 18, 1787)

PAGE 343

James Madison Discusses the Plans (June 19, 1787)

PAGE 352

Oliver Ellsworth Discusses Questions of Representation (June 29, 1787)

PAGE 359

James Wilson, Oliver Ellsworth, and James Madison Debate

(June 30, 1787)

PAGE 361

General Debate Following Decision for Equality of Suffrage in the Senate (July 16, 1787)

PAGE 366

ONCE THE CONVENTION MET, it followed the agenda that Madison had formed in the early spring. While waiting for other delegations to straggle into Philadelphia, the Virginia delegates drafted a plan that Governor Edmund Randolph finally introduced on May 29. From that moment on, it was evident that the convention was discussing a wholesale change of government rather than a mere revision of the Articles of Confederation. Not only did the Virginia Plan call for the creation of a full government, with independent legislative, executive, and judicial departments. It also proposed abandoning the rule of one state, one vote under which Congress had operated since 1774. The Virginia Plan proposed applying rules of proportional representation to both houses of the new national legislature. More than that, the Virginia delegates and allies from other populous states insisted that this principle had to be accepted first, before the convention could go on to ask exactly how powerful a government it wanted to create.

Delegates from the small states waited a fortnight to present their alternative. On June 15, William Paterson of New Jersey introduced the New Jersey Plan, which would have preserved the unicameral Congress with modestly augmented powers. One noteworthy response came three days later when Alexander Hamilton gave a lengthy, much admired, but finally unpersuasive speech suggesting that what the country really needed was a constitution much closer in form and substance to the government of Great Britain. The next day Madison gave a speech that restated many of his fundamental criticisms of the Articles of Confederation (which the New Jersey Plan would only enlarge, not replace).

The convention then rejected the New Jersey Plan, but the central issue remained before them: whether a principle of proportional representation should be applied to both houses of the proposed national legislature, or whether the upper house (eventually known as the Senate) should preserve the rule of an equal vote for each state. The delegates debated this question repeatedly over the next month. Then, in the critical vote of July 16, it narrowly endorsed the small states’ demand, by a vote of five states to four with one state, populous Massachusetts, divided. The next morning, the dismayed delegates from the large states briefly discussed whether they could proceed on this basis, and reluctantly agreed that they should.

Our principal sources for what was said at Philadelphia are the notes of debate that Madison conscientiously kept. Madison had been frustrated by how little he had been able to learn in his own private researches into the origins of other confederacies, ancient and modern. He accordingly determined to keep an accurate record of the proceedings at Philadelphia. “Nor was I unaware,” he later observed, “of the value of such a contribution to the fund of materials for the History of a Constitution on which would be staked the happiness of a young people great even in its infancy,