exercise of individual legislation," with power "to negative all laws
passed by the several States contravening in the opinion of the national
legislature the Articles of the Union."

A national executive was proposed, together with a national judiciary,
and these two bodies were given authority "to examine every act of the
national legislature before it shall operate and every act of a
particular legislature before a negative thereon shall be final." This
marked an immense advance over the Articles of Confederation, under
which there was no national executive or judiciary, and under which the
legislature had no direct power over the citizens of the States, and
could only impose duties upon the States themselves by the concurrence
of nine of the thirteen.

Hardly had Mr. Randolph submitted the so-called Virginia plan when
Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, a young man of twenty-nine years
of age, with the courage of youth submitted to the House a draft of the
future federal government. Curiously enough, it did not differ in
principle from the Virginia plan, but was more specific and concrete in
stating the powers which the federal government should exercise, and
many of its provisions were embodied in the final draft. Indeed,
Pinckney's plan was the future Constitution of the United States in
embryo; and when it is read and contrasted with the document which has
so justly won the acclaim of men throughout the world, it is amazing
that so young a man should have anticipated and reduced to a concrete
and effective form many of the most novel features of the Federal
Government. As the only copy of Pinckney's plan was furnished years
afterwards to Madison for his journal, it is possible that some of its
wisdom was of the _post factum_ variety.