Virginia Plan

The Virginia Plan was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Proposed by Edmund Randolph, but written largely by James Madison, it called for a strong central "national" government. The original plan included a three-branch government with a bicameral legislature, just as there is today. However, Randolph changed his mind later during the Convention at Philadelphia, and wanted the executive branch to consist of three people from different sections of the country (New England, Mid-Atlantic, and South) in order to obtain a balance of representation. The Virginia plan urged that a state's weight in votes toward congressmen be proportional to that state's population or wealth, which would be advantageous Virginian representation, which was about 700,000 (dwarfing, for example, Delaware's 27,000), and that the Senate be chosen by the representatives, so that the Senate indirectly would be based on population as well.

External link

• Text of the Virginia Plan, as reported by Madison (with links to variant texts)

The New Jersey Plan was a proposal for the structure of the United States Government proposed by William Paterson in the June of 1787. The plan was created in response to adoption of the Virginia Plan's call for two houses of Congress, both elected with proportional representation. The less populous states were adamantly opposed to giving most of the control of the national government to the larger states, and so proposed an alternate plan that would have given one vote per state for equal representation under one legislative body.

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When the Connecticut Compromise was constructed, the New Jersey Plan's legislative body was used as the model for the United States Senate.

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