nt the Virginia plan. To make the federal government operate
directly upon individuals, one provision was absolutely necessary. It
did not solve the whole problem, but it was an indispensable beginning.
This was the proposal that there should be a national legislature, in
which the American _people_ instead of the American states should be
represented. For the purposes of federal legislation, there must be an
assembly elected directly by the people, and with its members
apportioned according to population. There must be such an assembly as
our present House of Representatives, standing in the same immediate
relation to the people of the whole country as was sustained by the
assembly of each separate state to the people of that state. Without
such direct representation of the whole people in the Federal Congress,
it would be impossible to achieve one secure step toward the radical
reform of the weaknesses and vices of the confederation. It was the only
way in which the vexed question of one nation or thirteen could be made
to yield a satisfactory answer. At the same time it could not be denied
that such a proposal was revolutionary in character. It paved the way
for a national consolidation which might go further than any one could
foresee, and much further than was desirable. The moribund Congress of
the Confederation, with its delegates chosen by the state assemblies,
and casting its vote simply by states, had utterly failed to serve as a
national legislature. There was a good deal of truth in what John Adams
once said of it, that it was more a diplomatic than a legislative body.
It was, indeed, because of this consciously felt diplomatic character
that it was called a Congress, and not a Parliament. In its lack of
coercive power it resembled the international congresses of Europe
rather than the supreme legislature of any country. To substitute
abruptly for such a body a truly national legislature, based not upon
states but upon population, was quietly to inaugurate a revolution of no
less magnitude than that which had lately severed us from Great Britain.
So bold a step, while all-essential in order to complete that
revolution, and make its victorious issue fortunate instead of
disastrous to the American people, was sufficiently revolutionary to
awaken the fears of many members of the Federal Convention. To the
familiar state governments which had so long possessed their love and
allegiance, it was super-adding a new a