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The Achievement of the Philadelphia Convention
The New Jersey Plan:
Checks upon Central Power
If the delegations that united in mid-June behind the New Jersey Plan
had brought forward their ideas at the beginning of the Convention, they
might have prevailed over James Madison, James Wilson, and the large
delegations from Virginia and Pennsylvania. For as William Paterson
and his friends argued, their Plan much more nearly corresponded to the
sentiments of the average American citizen than did the Virginia Plan.
But as it is true in battle that the force which fires first ordinarily wins the
fight, so in public discussions a great advantage is gained often by the
side which speaks first and forcefully. By being introduced first, the Virginia Plan had become the basic design of the Convention before proponents of the New Jersey Plan spoke up. Put on the defensive, Paterson,
Luther Martin, Oliver Ellsworth, and other critics of the Virginia Plan
were able merely to modify the centralizing tendency of the Virginians’
proposal.
Shorter than the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan consisted of nine
resolutions, intended to improve the Articles of Confederation rather
than create a new constitutional instrument. It would have given the
Congress authority to raise revenues through taxes on imports, stamp
taxes, and postal charges. Power to regulate commerce among the States
would have been conferred upon the Congress. If the Federal government still needed more money, it could requisition funds from the several
States, proportionate to each State’s population (counting three-fifths of
the slaves as part of the population). Acts of Congress and treaties would
have been declared the supreme law of the United States.
The New Jersey Plan would have included a Federal executive consisting of several persons (as was the Pennsylvania executive at that
time), without a power of veto over acts of Congress. There would have
been a United States Supreme Court, appointed by the executive, with
original jurisdiction over cases of impeachment of Federal officers. The
court would receive on appeal from State courts various cases affecting
treaties, international and interstate trade, and collection of Federal
taxes.