One Of The Plans Presented At The Constitutional Convention

One of the plans presented at the Constitutional Convention was the Virginia Plan. Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph presented this plan at the beginning of the Convention. He, George Washington, and the other Virginia delegates came up with this idea while waiting for the Convention to begin. They came up with the Virginia Plan because the Articles of Confederation had many problems associated with it and the delegates wanted to fix them. One component of the Virginia Plan was that there would be a bicameral legislature. The upper house was called the Senate, where members were elected by the members of the lower house, the House of Representatives. In the House of Representatives, the members were elected by the citizens of the states.

William Patterson presented this plan on June 15, 1787. They felt this plan was necessary because with the Virginia Plan, the larger states would control the government since they had a greater amount of representatives versus the smaller states, therefore giving them more power. One part of the New Jersey Plan was that there would be three branches of government. The three branches were the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The legislative branch had only one house and each state got one vote in it. The executive branch was where the President sat, and the judicial branch served as a national jury. This plan was better than the Articles of Confederation, despite the fact that this plan basically strengthened it, because at least there were executive and judicial branches to help better run the country. There was also no “main” part of the government because the checks and balances system made sure that no branch had control over another. Also, each branch had certain abilities to keep both another branch and all of America in check so that each branch was equally important. Another section of the New Jersey Plan was that Congress had only one house. This plan made Congress awfully similar to when we were under the Articles because each state only got one vote, regardless of population, wealth, or any other factor. Despite its extreme similarity to the

At the Constitutional Convention, delegates had voted 7 to 3 for the Virginia Plan, but the smaller states were indignant about accepting this new plan. Therefore, Ben Franklin wanted to find a middle ground between the Virginia and New Jersey Plans. Consequently, Roger Sherman presented the Great Compromise on July 16, 1787. One concept in the Great Compromise is that each state gets two Senators and the number of members per state in the House of Representatives depended on the state’s population. This meant that larger states got more members in the House than smaller states, but in Senate everybody got the same number of representatives, essentially making it a combination of the Virginia and New Jersey Plans. The Great Compromise is better than the Articles because representation in Congress is more fair, giving a larger group a larger voice, and in the more important house, so to speak, everybody got equal votes. Another component of the Great Compromise is that the governmental limitations for each of the three branches ensured a checks and balances system. This means that each branch of government has its own abilities and powers (and lack thereof) so that no singular branch can take over the whole government. It is a more desirable alternative to the Articles of Confederation because with two additional branches