Victoria Hernandez

Professor Hamman
POLSC 1/#33266
22 January 2016
The Virginia Plan
The Virginia Plan was proposed by James Madison, who was chosen by the state of
Virginia as a delegate of the Continental Congress. He went to the Constitutional Convention in
the summer of 1787 to help revise the Articles of Confederation, which at the time, was the
document that served as the countrys constitution. The Virginia Plan called for a bi-cameral
legislature, which means that Congress would be made up of two houses: the Senate and the
House of Representatives. The plan called for more power to be given to the executive and
national legislature. Madison wanted to take more power away from the state legislature due to
the terrible economic conditions of the country. He proposed that the well-being of the country to
be kept in the hands of the few people in congress. The proposal mostly benefited larger states
because Madison wanted representation in Congress to be based off the population of each state,
which lead to a disagreement from the smaller states. Overall, the proposal looks about the same
as the national legislature we have now; with the exception of a few revisions on the amount of
representatives each state has in Congress.

The New Jersey Plan

The New Jersey Plan was proposed by the delegate William Patterson, from New Jersey,
at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The proposal was a small states alteration of the
Articles of Confederation and not a plan for the states sovereignty. It gave Congress the power

to levy taxes and to use military power to control defiant states who were not obeying the law of
the land. It also introduced the judicial branch and the process of interpreting and applying the
law to cases other than the regulation of commerce and trade. The New Jersey Plan supported
many of the ideas of the Virginia Plan, with the exception of the number of representatives each
state had in Congress. The New Jersey Plan called for a unicameral Congress that allowed each
state one vote in order to maintain equal sovereignty among all the states. This plan assured that
the smaller states would not be overpowered by votes from larger states in Congress.

The Great Compromise

Also known as the Connecticut Compromise, the Great Compromise was drawn from
two Connecticut representatives: Roger Sherman and William S. Johnson. It took ideas from
both the Virginia and the New Jersey Plan to create the congressional processes we still use
today. It set up the bi-cameral legislature made up of a lower house, which is the House of
Representatives, and an upper house, known as the Senate. To please the larger states, who were
in favor of the Virginia Plan, the House of Representatives would have a certain number of
appointed legislatures depending on the population of the state. To please the smaller states, who
were in favor of the New Jersey Plan, the Senate would only have two representatives from each
state. This balanced out the wishes of everyone by having equal representation in one house and
proportional representation in another. The Constitution that was written after the conclusions
made from the Great Compromise create the structure of the legislative branches we have today
in the United States Government.

Works Cited
Batten, Donna. "Madison, James." Gale Encyclopedia of American Law. 3rd ed. Vol. 6. Detroit:
Gale, 2011. 421-425. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 23 Jan. 2016.
Levy, Leonard W. "New Jersey Plan." Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Ed.
Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. Detroit: Macmillan Reference
USA, 2000. 1800. U.S. History in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2016.
Phelps, Shirelle and Lehman, Jeffery. "The New Jersey, or Paterson, Plan." West's Encyclopedia
of American Law. 2nd ed. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale, 2005. 110-111. U.S. History in Context.
Web. 23 Jan. 2016.
Levy, Leonard W. "Great Compromise." Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. Ed.
Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst. 2nd ed. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference
USA, 2000. 1228. U.S. History in Context. Web. 23 Jan. 2016.