Virginia Plan

9 Key excerpts on "Virginia Plan"

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  The Constitutional Convention of 1787

  A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of America's Founding [2 volumes]

  • John R. Vile(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • ABC-CLIO

    (Publisher)

  For the most part, then, the Virginia Plan was refined and enlarged (with details like the terms of office being added) but contained most of its ini- tial structure after the first two weeks of debate. The basic scheme for three branches of govern- ment, for representation in a bicameral Congress based on population, and for a veto of conflicting acts remained in place. The report from the Com- mittee of the Whole, however, prompted William Paterson to introduce the New Jersey Plan with a very different approach to the problems of the Confederation. The Importance of the Virginia Plan The most important aspect of the Virginia Plan was probably its role in setting the Convention’s initial agenda. Max Farrand observed: It is altogether possible, if the New Jersey plan had been presented to the convention at the same time as the Virginia Plan . . . and if without discussion a choice had then been made between the two, that the former would have been se- lected. It would seem as if the New Jersey plan more nearly represented what most of the dele- gates supposed that they were sent to do. But in the course of the two weeks’ discussions, many of the delegates had become accustomed to what might well have appeared to them at the outset as somewhat radical ideas. (Farrand 1913, 89) The Virginia Plan was an audacious remedy for what was perceived to be radical defects in the Ar- ticles of Confederation. Despite its accomplish- ments, the Confederation was a weak league of states, consisting essentially of a single branch of government, with a unicameral Congress with limited powers. Moreover, under the Articles, states were represented equally by delegates, which state legislatures appointed to Congress. The Virginia Plan proposed to replace this with a new arrangement between the nation and the states (at the Convention generally called “na- tional,” now generally called “federal”) in which the national government would have the power to veto state legislation.

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  The Challenge of Democracy

  American Government in Global Politics, Enhanced

  • Kenneth Janda, Jeffrey Berry, Jerry Goldman, Deborah Deborah(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The delegates unanimously agreed to debate Randolph’s proposal, called the Virginia Plan . Almost immediately, then, they rejected the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation, working instead to create an entirely new constitution. The Virginia Plan The Virginia Plan dominated the convention’s deliberations for the rest of the summer, making several important proposals for a strong central government: ● ● That the powers of the government be divided among three separate branches: a legislative branch , for making laws; an executive branch , for enforcing laws; and a judicial branch , for interpreting laws. ● ● That the legislature consist of two houses. The first would be chosen by the people, the second by the members of the first house from among candidates nominated by the state legislatures. ● ● That each state’s representation in the legislature be in proportion to the taxes it paid to the national government or in proportion to its free population. ● ● That an executive, consisting of an unspecified number of people, be selected by the legislature and serve for a single term. ● ● That the national judiciary include one or more supreme courts and other, lower courts, with judges appointed for life by the legislature. ● ● That the executive and a number of national judges serve as a council of revision, to approve or veto (disapprove) legislative acts. Their veto could be overridden by a vote of both houses of the legislature. ● ● That the scope of powers of all three branches be far greater than that assigned the national government by the Articles of Confederation and that the legislature be empowered to override state laws. By proposing a powerful national legislature that could override state laws, the Virginia Plan clearly advocated a new form of government. It was to have a mixed structure, with more authority over the states and new authority over the people. Madison was a monumental force in the ensuing debate on the proposals.

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  Forging the American Nation, 1787-1791

  James Madison and the Federalist Revolution

  • Shlomo Slonim(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The full measure of national authority was reflected in the provisions on the composition of the legislature and the powers it would dispose of. The strongly national design of the Virginia Plan was confirmed by its designation of the three branches of government as a National Legislature, a National Executive, and a National Judiciary. Bernard Bailyn has vividly summed up the design of the Virginia Plan as follows: It proposed the creation of a “Machtstaat, a central national power that involved armed force, the aggressive management of international relations, and, potentially at least, the regulation of vital aspects of everyday life by a government dominant over all other, lesser governments.” 10 FEDERALIZING THE NATIONAL LEGISLATURE In Madison’s view, a prime flaw in the Articles of Confederation lay in the composition of the Confederal Congress. Each of the thirteen states represented in the single house legislature was entitled to one vote, regardless of the size of its population or its wealth. Important decisions required a majority vote of nine for adoption (i.e. two-thirds) and amendments to the Articles, as noted earlier, necessitated unanimous approval by the states. A primary goal of the Virginia Plan was to end this dependency on the states by abolishing the state-dominated formula for the composition of the national legislature and replacing it with popular control to secure absolute freedom in the national council. The legislature would consist of two houses and suffrage would be proportioned according to “the number of free inhabitants” or according to “the Quotas of contribution,” depending upon the circumstances in each case. The members of the lower house would be elected by “the people of the several States” and those of the upper house would be elected by the lower house from candidates nominated by the state legislatures.

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  American Government and Politics Today

  The Essentials, Enhanced

  • Barbara Bardes, Mack Shelley, Steffen Schmidt, , Barbara Bardes, Mack Shelley, Steffen Schmidt(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The Virginia Plan. Randolph’s fifteen resolutions proposed an entirely new national government under a constitution. Basically, it called for the following: 1. A bicameral (two-chamber) legislature, with the lower chamber chosen by the people and the smaller upper chamber chosen by the lower chamber from nominees selected by state legislatures. The number of representatives would be proportional to a state’s population, thus favoring the large states. The legislature could void any state laws. 2. The creation of an unspecified national executive, elected by the legislature. 3. The creation of a national judiciary, appointed by the legislature. It did not take long for the smaller states to realize they would fare poorly under the Virginia Plan, which would enable Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia to form a majority in the national legislature. The debate on the plan dragged on for a number of weeks. It was time for the small states to come up with their own plan. North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Image 2–6 George Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Why might he have been chosen for this position? 41 Chapter 2 | The Constitution The New Jersey Plan. On June 15, William Paterson of New Jersey offered an alter-native plan. He proposed the following: 1. The fundamental principle of the Articles of Confederation—one state, one vote— would be retained. 2. Congress would be able to regulate trade and impose taxes. 3. All acts of Congress would be the supreme law of the land. 4. Several people would be elected by Congress to form an executive office. 5. The executive office would appoint a Supreme Court. Basically, the New Jersey Plan was simply an amendment of the Articles of Confedera-tion. Its only notable feature was its reference to the supremacy doctrine, which was later included in the Constitution. The “Great Compromise.” The delegates were at an impasse.

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  The Annotated U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence

  • Jack N. Rakove, Jack N Rakove(Authors)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Belknap Press

    (Publisher)

  [To view this image, refer to the print version of this title.] introduction 33 timents” among themselves. More important, they drafted a set of eleven articles that the delegation’s titular head, Gov-ernor Edmund Randolph, presented to the convention on May 29. The basis for this Virginia Plan could be found in let-ters and one critical memorandum that Madison had drafted in the early spring. Madison’s program called for the estab-lishment of a supreme national government comprising three independent departments, including a bicameral legis-lature in which representation in both houses would be allo-cated among the states in proportion to population and per-haps some unspecified measure of wealth. The legislature would be authorized to act “in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent, or in which the harmony of the United States may be interrupted by the exercise of individ-ual Legislation.” Madison probably expected that this open- ended grant of legislative authority would eventually give way to a list of specific legislative powers. But the fact that the Virginia Plan could propose this at all was a measure of the radical change it contemplated. Taken together, these proposals would free the national government from its crippling dependence on the states. But privately Madison had concluded that the convention should go further and use the occasion of national reform to strike at another problem: what he called the “multiplicity,” “mu-tability,” and “injustice” of lawmaking within the individual states. He had grown highly alarmed about the adoption of 34 introduction paper money and debtor relief laws which, he feared, might violate fundamental rights of property; he even worried that legislatures that were too responsive to popular influence might soon adopt redistributionist policies that would trans-fer wealth from one class to another.

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  Revolutionary America, 1763-1815

  A Sourcebook

  • Francis D. Cogliano, Kirsten E. Phimister(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Having identified the flaws in the American constitutional system in the “Vices of the Political System of the United States” (document 1), Madison proposed a solution—the creation of a continental super-republic with the authority to over-ride the states, which he believed were the greatest single source of political instability. Madison prepared a draft constitution in advance of the convention. He caucused with the other members of the Virginia delegation and won their support for the plan, which came to be known as the Virginia Plan. On May 29, 1787, Edmund Randolph (1753–1813) of Virginia presented the plan as a series of resolutions to the Convention. If adopted, the Virginia Plan would radically alter the fundamental constitution of the United States, replacing the Articles of Confederation with a more powerful, centralized government.

  State of the resolutions submitted to the consideration of the House by the honorable Mr. Randolph, as altered, amended, and agreed to, in a Committee of the whole House.

  1. Resolved that it is the opinion of this Committee that a national government ought to be established consisting of a Supreme Legislative, Judiciary, and Executive. 2. Resolved that the national Legislature ought to consist of Two Branches.

  3. Resolved that the members of the first branch of the national Legislature ought to be elected by the People of the several States for the term of Three years. to receive fixed stipends, by which they may be compensated for the devotion of their time to public service to be paid out of the National Treasury. to be ineligible to any Office established by a particular State or under the authority of the United-States (except those peculiarly belonging to the functions of the first branch) during the term of service, and under the national government for the space of one year after it’s expiration.

  4. Resolved that the members of the second Branch of the national Legislature ought to be chosen by the individual Legislatures. to be of the age of thirty years at least. to hold their offices for a term sufficient to ensure their independency, namely seven years. to receive fixed stipends, by which they may be compensated for the devotion of their time to public service—to be paid out of the National Treasury to be ineligible to any office established by a particular State, or under the authority of the United States (except those peculiarly belonging to the functions of the second branch) during the term of service, and under the national government, for the space of one year after it’s expiration.

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  Decision in Philadelphia

  The Constitutional Convention of 1787

  • Christopher Collier, James Lincoln Collier(Authors)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Blackstone Publishing

    (Publisher)

  The conflict between the big states and the small ones was joined on May 29, with the presentation of the Virginia Plan, by the Virginia governor, the charming but frequently irresolute Edmund Randolph. The plan, as we have seen, called for a legislature based on proportional representation, which the small states were certain to hate.

  The Virginia Plan was debated by the Convention, sitting as the Committee of the Whole, from May 30 to June 13. To the immense consternation of the small states, it was passed with no basic changes. It went through so easily because the Virginians had put together an alliance of the three most populous states—Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts—and the three states of what was then the Deep South—Georgia and the two Carolinas.

  The alliance was based in part on the misperception that with population flowing into the southwest, the Deep South states would soon be big states themselves; their interests would eventually be the same as those of the Big Three. The alliance may also have been based on a sense among the delegates from the Deep South that if they supported the Big Three on issues important to them, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania would not attempt to harass the Deep South on an issue crucial to them—slavery.

  Yet it was an uneasy alliance. Northerners and southerners were suspicious of each other, and their interests were opposed in a number of areas, as we shall eventually see. But for the moment the alliance held, and it was able to ram through proportional representation. But long before the ramming was done, it was clear to everybody that the Convention was faced with a deep division, which might shortly tear it apart. So strongly did men on both sides of the issue feel about it that other important issues could not be profitably addressed until this one was settled.

  Today it is difficult to see why the issue should have brought such smoking ferocity to the Convention floor. Rarely in the history of the United States have the small states and the large states lined up on opposite sides of an issue. Political divisions tend to be, for example, sectional, with the South poised against the North, or the Sun Belt at odds with the Frost Belt. Or they are cut along economic lines, with city dwellers fighting farmers over, say, farm subsidies.

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  The Emergence of One American Nation

  The Revolution, the Founders, and the Constitution

  • Donald J Fraser(Author)
  • 0(Publication Date)
  • Fraser & Associates

    (Publisher)

  Such a proposal, if combined with the direct election of the House based on proportional representation, would mean that the large states would dominate both chambers of the legislature. Richard Spaight of North Carolina, along with Sherman and Butler, proposed that the state legislatures should choose the members of the Senate. Wilson wanted the people to directly elect both the Senate and the House, “because the second branch…ought to be independent of both” the House and the state legislatures. They then put the original proposal as contained in the Virginia Plan to a vote and lost, with only three states voting yes. Madison had finally lost a major vote, causing him to remark that, “A chasm [was] left in this part of the plan.” 57 On May 31, the Framers debated one last major element of the Virginia Plan that dealt with whether the Congress would be provided with the power “to legislate in all cases to which the separate States are incompetent” and “to negative all laws passed by the several States” where such laws were found to be in violation of “the articles of Union.” 58 Several members protested that the language of the resolution, specifically the word “incompetent” was too vague. Both Randolph and Madison indicated they did not intend to give unlimited power to the national legislature, and that the new government would be one of enumerated and limited powers. This seemed to assuage the Convention members, and they approved the first part of the resolution on a vote of nine to zero, with Connecticut divided. Surprisingly, the proposal to allow the national legislature to veto state laws passed without debate and dissent, a decision that they would ultimately overturn later in the Convention. They decided to postpone a final element of the sixth resolve, which would have allowed for the use of force against a delinquent state, when Madison indicated he was having second thoughts about such an approach

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  The Federal Principle

  A Journey Through Time in Quest of Meaning

  • Rufus S. Davis(Author)
  • 2023(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  Why indeed should one believe that their concern was anything other than to sell the first and basic idea of the Virginia Plan, a supreme national government, and the rest but a masterful mix ot constitutional reality, gloss, and fantasy. Certainly the con- version of the two most formidable exponents of the Virginia Plan to the language of co-ordinate, co-equal, and co-sovereign in the Federalist Papers was suspect, when only several months earlier, both before and during the Convention, they had spo- ken of the States as "subordinate" bodies, compared them to counties and local authorities, and even more significantly continued to speak of them in the very same papers as "muni- cipal establishments" and "subordinate governments." 4 ' Their contempt for the "sovereign" pretensions of these "municipal establishments" was barely concealed. 43. For example, The Federalist, Nos. 14 and 46. See also Madison's letter to Washington (he wrote a similar letter to Randolph) prior to the Conven- tion, in which he set out his views on the question of drawing a line be- tween the nation and the states. Referred to as Madison's "middle ground," its nature is apparent in the following: "Conceiving that an individual in- dependence of the states is utterly irreconcilable with their aggregate sovereignty, and that a consolidation of the whole into one simple republic would be as inexpedient as it is unattainable, I have sought for a middle ground, which may at once support a due supremacy of the national autho- ity, and not exclude the local authorities whenever they can be subordi- nate^ useful." (Quoted in Rossiter, ¡787, p. 126; my italics.)

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