The Virginia Plan Case Study

The Virginia Plan, drafted by James Madison and proposed at the Constitutional Convention by Edmund Randolph, was to install a national government with a bicameral legislature and was to be comprised by representative that held seats, in the new congress, in proportion to each states population. After the delegates at convention accepted the Virginia Plan as a basis to build on the national government, debate quickly arose against the share of distributed legislative power the northern states would have over the southern states to make national policy. This was due to the northern states having much larger populations than those of the south, but since the southern states had amassed a large number of slaves, it was believed that the southern representation in congress should also include the slave population. The northern states were opposed to this idea given that slaves were generally
I believe that the southern contention to include slaves as part of the representative count is correct and that they should be counted as whole individuals. Given the views and discussions of the time revolving slavery, the south was facing the strong possibility that norther views would have great power in congress, thus threatening southern wealth and way of life. The inclusion of the slave population to protect the interest of the south would give southern suffrage enough voting power to keep the institution in place and maintain the wealth produce by slave labor. Further, since voting is constrained to white males, who most often represent and oversee the business of their households, there can be concession to only levy taxes upon the free populace who have aspirations of wealth and property in exchange for a limitation on how long the slave population can be used as part of representation. I believe the big three states, knowing that the north states were opposed to slavery, slavery abolitionist were demanding more and growing and that the existing