The plan also addressed governmental capacity. Its legislature would possess authority in areas where the states were not competent to act separately and could prevent state measures that conflicted with the national framework. The legislature would select a national executive and participate in establishing a national judiciary. Not every detail survived, and the Convention repeatedly revised institutional relationships, but the plan changed the meeting's agenda. Delegates were now debating the architecture of a new government rather than merely adding one or two powers to the Articles.

Representation and power must be analyzed separately. A delegate could favor a stronger national government yet oppose the Virginia Plan because population-based representation threatened a small state. Conversely, support for proportional representation did not settle questions about executive selection, slavery, commerce, or the exact reach of national authority. The plan bundled several choices, which is why a question should identify more than the phrase "strong government." Its distinctive combination was a substantially national structure and legislative influence tied to population or contribution.

The final Constitution retained important parts of the plan without adopting it intact. The House used population as its basis of apportionment, and the Constitution created separate executive and judicial branches within a more capable national government. Equal state representation in the Senate, however, came from the later Connecticut Compromise, not from Virginia's proposal. On an exam, reject two opposite errors: the Virginia Plan was neither the completed Constitution nor merely a large-state demand for more seats. It was a broad governing proposal whose representation rule favored large states and whose institutional ambition pushed the Convention beyond revision of the Articles.

Video lesson: Constitutional Compromises: Crash Course Government and Politics #5