The most important event in the creation of the United States government was the Philadelphia Convention in 1787, also known as the Constitutional Convention. At this event, delegates from every state except Georgia gathered in Philadelphia to discuss the topic of what should replace the Articles of Confederation. Of the plans suggested by delegates, the New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan were the most appealing to those at the convention. The Virginia Plan recommended proportional representation while the New Jersey Plan wanted equal representation. The United States government would be shaped in a completely different way today if the Framers had not put forth each of the two plans which formed the Great Compromise.

The Virginia Plan was put forth by James Madison, who had been working on it for a while. He proposed that for the national government to be strong it should have more power than the states. Madison had the idea that Congress should …show more content…
In many ways the New Jersey Plan was the opposite of the Virginia plan. Patterson favored a weak national government, which would favor the states. One downside to this approach was that it would result in many of the same problems created by the Articles Of Confederation. Patterson also called for just one house of Congress which would have equal representation, which means that each state no matter what the size, should have the same amount of representatives. The New Jersey Plan also stated that Congress would have the power to collect taxes and levy fines to collect money. This Plan gave the same amount of power to the smaller states as it did to the larger states which many delegates felt wasn't very fair. “The Framers saw that neither the New Jersey Plan or the Virginia Plan solved the problem of representation.” (We The People 117). This quote emphasizes the need of a plan that would benefit the common welfare of the United