Chapter 6: A national government in three branches

Governor Edmund Randolph opens the convention with his “Virginia Plan,” which calls for a Republic rather than a pure Democracy, with the potentially volatile wishes of the public vetted and refined through a set of wiser elected representatives. Randolph then outlines his plan, beginning with a bold assertion:

A national government ought to be established consisting of a supreme legislative,
executive and judiciary.

This call for a “national government” is a direct challenge to those intent on protecting their own state “sovereignty” and who oppose efforts to inject a higher authority at the federal level. While this tension between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists persist, the two sides eventually coalesce around the “Virginia Plan” as the basic framework for the new government.