The Virginia Plan: A Supreme National Government
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ized government. This new system would be a form of government that
would forever change the meaning of the word ‘‘federal.’’
To understand how this novel proposal—our Constitution—took form,
we first need to look at the rival plans laid before the Convention in its
early weeks.
The Virginia Plan:
A Supreme National Government
By May 29, the delegates had made their way through the preliminary
stages of organization. The delegates from Virginia, then the most populous of the States, promptly presented to the Convention a bold design
for abolishing the Articles of Confederation and substituting a national
government.
Edmund Randolph, the Governor of Virginia, introduced the Virginia
Plan. It consisted of fifteen resolutions that were drawn up primarily by
James Madison. The first resolution criticized the operation of the Articles of Confederation. Then, in the succeeding resolutions, the Virginians
proposed a new form of government for the whole nation.
They proposed three separate branches of government: legislative, executive, and judi