on pithily reminded the delegates
that as they were there only for the purpose of recommending a scheme
which would have to be submitted to the states for acceptance, they
need not be deterred by any false scruples from using their wits to the
best possible advantage. The debate on the merits of the question was an
angry one. According to the Virginia plan, said Brearly, the three
states of Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania will carry
everything before them. "It was known to him, from facts within New
Jersey, that where large and small counties were united into a district
for electing representatives for the district, the large counties always
carried their point, and consequently the large states would do so....
Was it fair, on the other hand, that Georgia should have an equal vote
with Virginia? He would not say it was. What remedy, then? One only:
that a map of the United States be spread out, that all the existing
boundaries be erased, and that a new partition of the whole be made into
thirteen equal parts." "Yes," said Paterson, "a confederacy supposes
sovereignty in the members composing it, and sovereignty supposes
equality. If we are to be considered as a nation, all state distinctions
must be abolished, the whole must be thrown into hotchpot, and when an
equal division is made then there may be fairly an equality of
representation." This argument was repeated with a triumphant air, as
seeming to reduce the Virginia plan to absurdity. Paterson went on to
say that "there was no more reason that a great individual state,
contributing much, should have more votes than a small one, contributing
little, than that a rich individual citizen should have more votes than
an indigent one. If the ratable property of A was to that of B as forty
to one, ought A, for that reason, to have forty times as many votes as
B?... Give the large states an influence in proportion to their
magnitude, and what will be the consequence? Their ambition will be
proportionally increased, and the small states will have everything to
fear. It was once proposed by Galloway [in the first Continental
Congress] that America should be represented in the British Parliament,
and then be bound by its laws. America could not have been entitled to
more than one third of the representatives which would fall to the share
of Great Britain: would American rights and interests have been safe
under an authority thus constituted?" Then, warming with the su