Philadelphia designs a divided national government

Two rival plans meet in one room

By May 25, 1787, enough delegations had reached Philadelphia to begin formal business. George Washington presided. James Madison arrived with arguments for a national government strong enough to act directly on individuals, not merely ask states for assistance. Edmund Randolph introduced the Virginia Plan, which favored representation related to population. William Paterson of New Jersey countered with a plan preserving equal state votes in a single national legislature. Large and small states had different reasons to fear losing control.

Roger Sherman and other delegates helped broker the settlement adopted in July: representation by population in the House of Representatives and equal representation for states in the Senate. The compromise was not a mathematical discovery or a perfect reconciliation of interests. It was a bargain that kept states in the union while creating a legislature able to enact national law. The House would be directly elected; senators, until the Seventeenth Amendment of 1913, would be selected by state legislatures.

Why this republic would operate differently

The proposed executive would not inherit office. A president would serve a fixed term, chosen through an electoral system involving the states, and would remain subject to constitutional restraints. Congress would legislate and control federal appropriations; the president could veto legislation; Congress could override a veto by sufficient votes. Federal judges would hold office during good behavior, insulated from routine election cycles. No part of this design guaranteed wise choices, but the division forced officials to confront rival sources of constitutional authority.

This combination was distinctive, not uniquely republican. Some republics concentrate executive and legislative power in parliamentary institutions. France’s Fifth Republic, established in 1958, uses a president and a prime minister answerable in different ways to elected institutions. The United States instead created a separately elected president with a fixed term and a federal division of responsibilities between national and state governments. Neither structure alone proves greater freedom or better outcomes; each creates different methods of accountability and different vulnerabilities.

The compromises that cannot be celebrated away

Enslavement was protected by major constitutional bargains. The three-fifths formula counted enslaved people for representation and direct-tax apportionment while giving them no corresponding political rights; the slave trade could not be federally prohibited before 1808. Gouverneur Morris argued against slavery during the convention, but the delegates did not abolish it. Women were excluded from the framing process. The proposed Constitution also lacked an explicit bill of rights. On September 17, 1787, the delegates who remained willing to sign sent a workable but morally incomplete government plan to the states. Its fate now belonged to a wider contest over ratification.