The plan which Hamilton then read to the Convention, the principal features of which have thus been stated, was designed to explain his views, but was not intended to be offered as a substitute for either of the two others then under consideration. The issue accordingly remained unchanged; and that issue lay between the Virginia and the New Jersey plans, or between a system of equal representation by States, and a system of proportionate representation of the people of the States. Besides this radical difference, the Virginia plan contemplated two houses, while the New Jersey plan proposed to retain the existing system of a single body.

But in order that a sound judgment may be formed of the correctness of Hamilton's opinions, and of the useful influence which they exerted, it must be remembered that there was an inconsistency in the Virginia plan, which he was then aiming to exhibit. That plan was a purely national system; it drew both branches of the national legislature from the people of the States, in proportion to their numbers, and merely interposed the legislatures of the States as the electors of so many senators as the State might be entitled to have according to the ratio of representation. Its inconsistency lay in the fact, that, while it would have created a government in which the proportionate principle of representation would have obtained in both houses, making a purely national government, in which the States, as equal political corporations, could have exercised no direct control over its legislation, it left the separate political sovereignties of the States almost wholly unimpaired, taking from them jurisdiction over such subjects only as seemed to require national legislation. The operation of such a system must necessarily have involved perpetual conflicts between national and State power; for the States, possessed of a large part of their original sovereignties, and yet unable to exert an equal control in either branch of Congress, would have been constantly tempted and obliged to exert the indirect power of their separate legislation against the direct and democratic force of a majority of the people of the United States. To such a system, the objection urged by Hamilton, that it presented a democratic House checked by a democratic Senate, was strikingly applicable. This objection, it is true, was not presented by him as a reason for admitting the States to a direct and equal representation in the government; he employed it to enforce the expediency of giving to the Senate a different basis from that of the House, and one farther removed from popular influences. But when, at a subsequent period, the first great compromise of the Constitution—that between a purely national and a purely federal system—took place by the admission of the States to an equal representation in the Senate, the force of Hamilton's reasoning was felt, and the necessity for a check as between the two houses, founded on a difference of origin, which he had so strenuously maintained, both facilitated and hastened the concession to the demands of the smaller States.

At present, Hamilton's object, in the discussions which we are now considering, was to show that, if the government was to be purely national,—as was the theory of the Virginia plan, and as he undoubtedly preferred,—it must be consistent with that theory and with the situation in which its adoption would leave the country. It must introduce through the Senate a real check upon the democratic power that would act through the House, by a different mode of election and a permanent tenure of office; and in order that the States might not be in a situation to resist the measures of a government designed to be national and supreme, that government must possess complete and universal legislative power.

Surely it can be no impeachment of the wisdom or the statesmanship of this great man, that, at a time when a large majority of the Convention were seeking to establish a purely national system, founded on a proportionate representation of the people of the States, he should have pointed out the inconsistencies of such a plan, and should have endeavored to bring it into a nearer conformity with the theory which so many of the members and so many of the States had determined to adopt. It seems rather to be a proof of the deep sagacity which had always marked his opinions and his conduct, that he should have foreseen the inevitable collisions between the powers of a national government thus constituted and the powers of the States. The whole experience of the past had taught him to anticipate such conflicts, and the theory of a purely national government, when applied by the arrangement now proposed, rendered it certain that these conflicts must continue and increase. That theory could only be put in practice by transferring the whole legislative powers of the people of the States to the national government. This he would have preferred; and in this, looking from the point of view at which he then stood, and considering the actual position of the subject, he was undoubtedly right.[57]

For it is not to be forgotten, that after the votes which had been taken, and after the position assumed by the States opposed to anything but a federal plan, the choice seemed to lie between a purely national and a purely federal system; that the indications then were, that the Virginia plan would be adopted; and that we owe the present compound character of the Constitution, as a government partly national and partly federal, not to the mere theories proposed on either side, but to the fortunate results of a wise compromise, made necessary by the collision between the opposite purposes and desires of different classes of the States.

At the time when Hamilton laid his views before the Convention, there were two parties in that body, which were coming gradually to a struggle, not yet openly avowed, between the larger and the smaller States, on the fundamental principle of the government. The principal question at stake was whether there should be any national popular representation at all. While the Virginia plan carried a popular representation into both branches of the legislature, the New Jersey plan excluded it, and confined the system to a representation of States, in a single body. The larger and more populous States adhered to the former of these two systems, because it involved the only principle upon which they believed they could form a new Union, or enter into new relations with the smaller members of the confederacy; while, on the other hand, the smaller members felt that self-preservation was for them involved in adhering to the old principle of the Confederation. Notwithstanding the defects and imperfections of the Virginia plan, it was deemed necessary by the majority of the Convention to insist upon it, until the principle of popular representation should be conceded by all, as proper to exist in some part of the government; for an admission that it was theoretically incorrect in its application to either branch of the proposed legislature would have applied equally to the other branch; and the admission that would have been involved in the acceptance of Hamilton's propositions, namely, that in a purely national system there must be a Senate permanently in office, and that the legislative powers of the States must be mainly surrendered, would have tended only to confirm the opposition and to swell the numbers of the minority. The contest went on, therefore, as it had begun, between the opposite principles of popular and State representation, until it resulted in an absolute difference, requiring mutual concessions, or an abandonment of the effort to form a Constitution.

On the day following that on which Hamilton had addressed the committee, Mr. Madison entered into an elaborate examination of the plan proposed by the minority. The previous Congressional experience of this distinguished and sagacious man had well qualified him to detect the imperfections of a system calculated to perpetuate the evils under which the country had long suffered. His object now was to show that a Union founded on the principle of the Confederation, and containing no diminution of the existing powers of the States, could not accomplish even the principal objects of a general government. It would not, he observed, in the first place, prevent the States from violating, as they had all along violated, the obligations of treaties with foreign powers; for it left them as uncontrolled as they had always been. It would not restrain the States from encroaching on the federal authority, or prevent breaches of the federal articles. It would not secure that equality of privileges between the citizens of different States, and that impartial administration of justice, the want of which had threatened both the harmony and the peace of the Union. It would not secure the republican theory, which vested the right and the power of government in the majority; as the case of Massachusetts then demonstrated. It would not secure the Union against the influence of foreign powers over its members. Whatever might have been the case with ours, all former confederacies had exhibited the effects of intrigues practised upon them by other nations; and as the New Jersey plan gave to the general councils no negative on the will of the particular States, it left us exposed to the same pernicious machinations.

He begged the smaller States, which had brought forward this plan, to consider in what position its adoption would leave them. They would be subject to the whole burden of maintaining their delegates in Congress. They and they alone would feel the power of coercion on which the efficacy of this plan depended, for the larger States would be too powerful for its exercise. On the other hand, if the obstinate adherence of the smaller States to an inadmissible system should prevent the adoption of any, the Union must be dissolved, and the States must remain individually independent and sovereign, or two or more new confederacies must be formed. In the first event, would the small States be more secure against the ambition and power of their larger neighbors, than they would be under a general government pervading with equal energy every part of the empire, and having an equal interest in protecting every part against every other part? In the second event, could the smaller States expect that their larger neighbors would unite with them on the principle of the present confederacy, or that they would exact less severe concessions than were proposed in the Virginia scheme?

The great difficulty, he continued, lay in the affair of representation; and if that could be adjusted, all others would be surmountable. It was admitted by both of the gentlemen from New Jersey,[58] that it would not be just to allow Virginia, which was sixteen times as large as Delaware, an equal vote only. Their language was, that it would not be safe for Delaware to allow Virginia sixteen times as many votes. Their expedient was, that all the States should be thrown into one mass, and a new partition be made into thirteen equal parts. Would such a scheme be practicable? The dissimilarities in the rules of property, as well as in the manners, habits, and prejudices of the different States, amounted to a prohibition of the attempt. It had been impossible for the power of one of the most absolute princes in Europe,[59] directed by the wisdom of one of the most enlightened and patriotic ministers that any age had produced,[60] to equalize in some points only the different usages and regulations of the different provinces. But, admitting a general amalgamation and repartition of the States to be practicable, and the danger apprehended by the smaller States from a proportional representation to be real, would not their special and voluntary coalition with their neighbors be less inconvenient to the whole community and equally effectual for their own safety?[61] If New Jersey or Delaware conceived that an advantage would accrue to them from an equalization of the States, in which case they would necessarily form a junction with their neighbors, why might not this end be attained by leaving them at liberty to form such a junction whenever they pleased? And why should they wish to obtrude a like arrangement on all the States, when it was, to say the least, extremely difficult, and would be obnoxious to many of the States,—and when neither the inconvenience nor the benefit of the expedient to themselves would be lessened by confining it to themselves? The prospect of many new States to the westward was another consideration of importance. If they should come into the Union at all, they would come when they contained but few inhabitants. If they should be entitled to vote according to their proportion of inhabitants, all would be right and safe. Let them have an equal vote, and a more objectionable minority than ever might give law to the whole.[62]

At the close of Mr. Madison's remarks, the committee decided, by a vote of seven States against three, one State being divided, to report the Virginia plan to the Convention. The delegation of New York (with the exception of Hamilton), and those of New Jersey and Delaware, constituted the negative votes. The vote of Maryland was divided by Luther Martin, who had constantly acted with the minority. The vote of Connecticut was given for the report, but she was not long to remain on that side of the question.[63]