The Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan had many similarities and distinct differences. The New Jersey Plan wanted the Legislative Branch to consist of one house with equal representation from all states. It also stated that the Legislative Branch could collect taxes from the states. The Virginia Plan included details about a powerful Legislative Branch. There would be two houses with membership proportional to the state’s population.
As the Constitutional Congress were creating America’s new government from scratch, a problem came into their hands. They couldn’t decide whether to have equal representation or representation proportional (corresponding in size) to each state's’ population. Each of them either favored smaller or bigger states. Such as the Virginia Plan, this plan favored big states because it stated that the bigger the population, the more representatives they get. On the other hand, the New Jersey plan favored smaller states because it stated that no matter how big or small the population is, they get an equal amount of representatives.
The authors of the Constitution created a balance between federal and state government by creating federalism or a division of powers with checks and balances while maintaining the separation of powers. That being said, the Virginia Plan of having every state hold a two-house legislature was debated against the New Jersey Plan that entailed a single house Congress (Foner, 2014). The end result was a two-house Congress in which each state could then have two senate members that are required to serve for one term of six years and a House of Representatives in which member were elected directly by the people every two years. This system made sure that each population was represented equally despite one state being larger than the other (Foner,
It was written by William Patterson. The New Jersey plan favored giving control of the federal government to the states, not the people through their representatives. They proposed a unicameral legislature of only one house. This called for equal representation in which each state had the same number of representatives. The New Jersey Plan also called for Separation of Powers consisting of legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
At the Constitutional Convention, our founding fathers met to reconstruct the Articles of Confederation, not knowing that they would create the United States Constitution, an entire new format of government. They wanted to create a government that was powerful yet restricted in certain ways, in order to create equal representation for all people. Three main compromises were made at the Constitutional Convention. These compromises were The Great Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise, and the addition of the Bill of Rights.
Moreover, under the Articles each state only has between two or seven delegates in congress, while in the Constitution each has two members in the Senate and one Representative per 300 thousand people. since states with bigger populations wanted representation to be solely based on population and states with smaller populations wanted there to be a fixed number of representatives per state, regardless of size or population, The Connecticut Compromise resolved this issue by forming the two houses
The plan proposed by Virginia otherwise known as the “large-state plan.” Which proposed “a bicameral legislature, in which the lower house would be elected proportionately and the upper house would be selected from a list of nominees sent from the state legislatures on the basis of equal representation for the states. ”(add footnote) As the smaller states feared that this plan would lose a voice in the federal government if they continued with the Virginia plan, they opposed this plan and came up with one for themselves which would be known as the “small-state plan.” The small-state plan would propose “a unicameral Congress, with equal representation for each state, with all the powers of the Confederation Congress.
198). This was known as the New Jersey Plan. In the text, Experience History, it states that this plan raised Congress’s power to tax and regulate trade, and kept national government a unicameral. Though it did not take long before the delegates rejected Paterson’s plan and going back to Madison’s plan. The problem with this plan was the idea of the seats being proportional to the states because some states were bigger than others (Davidson, et al., 2013, p. 198).
Obviously, smaller states were not pleased with that plan. They thought that larger states could easily overrule them in congress. So William Paterson created a plan called the New Jersey Plan. It as well had the same three branches but, the plan provided legislators to have only one house. Each state would only one vote in the legislator, regardless of the population.
After signing the Declaration of Independence in 1776, The 13 former colonies were undergoing an identity crisis. It was one thing to declare independence, but it was another to realize what you were now that you declared it. The Constitution was eventually written, at an attempt to create a more perfect union between the states. One of the amazing things about the Constitutional Convention was that the people knew most governments would result in either chance or war. They knew that what they were doing was sitting in a room and rationally trying to create a good government.
At all constitutional conventions many argument's come up, and those who propose an idea believe the idea that they proposed is ideal. What doesn't cross their mind is that not everyone will agree with their ideas, in fact in the famous constitutional convention of the United States there were a lot of disagreements, "Serious conflicts arose at the outset, especially between those representing the small and large States" (Bloom). This shows that even though most of the delegates in the American Constitutional Convention soon became important figures in U.S history after the constitution was drafted, they did not agree on the same thing. In the constitutional convention of NuCountry many topics were brought up to be voted on. Most of the
Constitutional Convention: The people that decided to correct the government’s problems were typically educated, well known, and rich. They had the characteristic quality of a leader. Respected, successful, and willing to fix things were other traits of the men that met at the Convention. Most of the members of the convention were lawyers and half of them had college educations, which was very rare at the time. George Washington, a well-known man, was the president, or chairman, of the Convention.
The Second Day of the Convention, 1787 When I walked back into that hot, stuffy room of the convention I didn’t expect much, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that General Washington had taken a much more authoritative approach to his position. We had actually almost gotten past three agenda items, the first being how many representatives will be in each legislative house. As I mentioned in last night entry, I had proposed 1 representative for every 20,000 citizens. Although I knew what I wanted from the beginning, I wasn’t the first one called. The first proposal of the day, made by McHenry Wilson, was 1 representative per state.
Delegates from smaller states wanted a government of equal representation, while delegates from larger states wanted representation based on population. The Senate and the
In the creating of the US Constitution, the creators hit many roadblocks. It was difficult for the state delegates to decide on much, especially because they were biased and in favor of their own states. The New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan were two examples of the disagreement of representation within the states in the legislative branch. The New Jersey Plan was in favor of equal representation throughout the states. The Virginia Plan was in favor of population representation, meaning the larger states would have more representation than the smaller states.
