More handpicked essays just for you.
The constitutional convention of 1787 conflict and compromise
Constitutional convention summary
Constitutional convention summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
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.
Virginia and New Jersey are plans presented at constitutional convention. They give information about the structure of the government, representation of the congress, powers given to the congress and the composition of the government branches. There are several similarities between plans presented at constitutional convection by Virginia and the New Jersey plans. On the other hand there are differences between the two plans as illustrated below.
These men being known as the founding fathers The Virginia plan was to create a government consisted of what Edmond Randolph proposed that the national government be compiled of a supreme, legislative, executive and judiciary. It was also consisted of 2 houses. The lower house would represent states with the largest population. The members of the upper house would be elected by the lower house making the smaller states have little or no representation in the upper house at all.
In May 25, 1787, a convention was called in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to express the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. However, the intention from many delegates was to draft a new constitution; create a new government rather than fix the existing one. Rhode Island was the only one of the 13 original states to refuse to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention. At the Convention, the first issues they had to address was the representation in Congress.
The Articles of Confederation had failed, therefore the delegate meeting consisted of discussions of how to repair the conflict on a permanent level. The Virginia Plan entailed scraping the Articles,
constitution and it failed. Shay’s Rebellion showed the weaknesses of this document, which resulted in the revision at the constitutional convention. Representation between large states and smaller states and slavery were heavily discussed in this convention. At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, two documents called the Virginia Plan and New Jersey Plan were proposed for representation, and a compromise was made. The new U.S. Constitution declares that states would be equally represented in the upper house of Congress.
Virginia Plan The Virginia plan was proposed by an Edmund J. Randolph in May 28, 1787. The plan however was written by James Madison, a political theorist. The Virginia Plan was also called the Big State plan because it would mostly benefit the bigger states. The Virginia Plan was the first document to suggest a separation of powers into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, which would all be independent from one another.
Compromise was a huge part of America 's history and was extremely useful when it came to the “Articles of Confederation.” The government was starting to realize the articles weren 't strong enough any more and weren 't helping control the citizens. The government said they needed to be revised so Virginia and New Jersey both made an attempt at fixing them. The Virginia Plan was written May 29,1787 and the New Jersey Plan was written shortly after on June 15, 1787. Both plans were preposals for forms of government and both had many flaws.
The Articles of Confederation structured the first government of the thirteen states. The thirteen states included: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. However, Rhode Island did not vote to revise the Articles right away. Therefore, the proposals of the Constitution continued to be declined by the other states due to not having a balance on votes. When Rhode Island finally sent a representative to the Constitution Convention, the Constitution was approved.
On 1787, a constitutional convention was held in Philadelphia state house, where three proposal were suggested: the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and the Connecticut Compromise. The Virginia Plan intention was to establish a Congress with numerical representation and a more robust national government; however, this proposition led into an opposed proposal called The New Jersey plan. The New Jersey plan was made to make modification to the Articles of Confederation but more importantly, the plan is to make clear of whom has the power of what states. Two delegates from Connecticut were joined together to acquire the image only by the states in senate and numbers in the House, calling it the Connecticut Compromise. As all the Plans I previously mentioned, I will go on depth on how the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and the Connecticut Compromise shape America today.
For an example, this would give Virginia much more delegates than Delaware, the smallest state. Delegates from small states objected to the plan, instead they preferred the Confederation system in which all states were represented equally. On June 15, William Paterson, a delegate from New Jersey, presented a different plan called the New Jersey Plan that revised the Articles of Confederation, which was all the convention was empowered to do. The Plan kept the Confederation’s one-house legislature, with one vote for each state. Congress could set taxes and regulate trade, powers they did not have under the Articles.
However, in 1786, all the States invited by the Virginia Legislature for the discussion regarding the ways to reduce conflicts in Annapolis, Maryland, thought about doing a Grand Convention of all the States to have a deeper conversation about how to improve the Articles of Confederation. The next year, 1787, they held the Constitution Convention in Philadelphia. At the convention, there were two plans presented which were the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan pushed for relative representation among states in the legislature, a national government that has the ability to act directly on individuals, and a federal government more powerful than the states. On the other hand, the New Jersey Plan pushed for equal representation among states in the legislature, a national government that has the ability to act on states – and the states act on individuals –, and states are to be stronger.
James Madison since the first meeting that was supposed to take had already planned on doing more than revising the Articles of Confederation. At the start of the convention Madison, being a nationalist did not feel like he should be the one to present the plan, so he had his friend Edmund Randolph present it (Barbash, 1987). The Virginia Plan, as it was called, would not only give Congress the ability to do more but it also opened up two other parts of the government. The plan was to be a two-house Congress, a lower and upper. The lower house would be elected by the people and the upper would be chosen by the house (Barbash, 1987).
After deciding to write a new constitution, the delegates could not decide what new form the government should take. One of the options was the Virginia Plan created by Edmund Randolph and James Madison. The plan included a strong government with three branches (the legislative branch, The judicial branch, and the executive branch). In the Virginia Plan, the legislator would consist of two houses and seats would be awarded on the basis of the population. Due to the fact that the seats are awarded based on population, larger states would have more representatives than smaller states.
Virginia held five Revolutionary Conventions between August 1774 and July 1776. The conventions selected and instructed the Virginia delegates to Congress, organized military preparation, arranged economic embargoes of British goods, and formed the Virginia Committee of Safety that between August 1775 and July 1776 governed Virginia in the absence of the royal governor. The last of the Revolutionary Conventions met in the Capitol in Williamsburg from May 6 through July 5, 1776. On the morning of May 6, a few members of the House of Burgesses met there for the last time and let that body die.
