Having received the two plans, the convention then went, on May 30,
into a committee of the whole to consider the fifteen propositions in
the Virginia plan _seriatim_. They wisely concluded to determine
abstract ideas first and concrete forms later. Apparently for the time
being little attention was paid to Pinckney's plan, and this may have
been due to the hostile attitude of the older members of the convention
to the presumption of his youth.

Then ensued a very remarkable debate on the immediate propositions and
the principles of government which underlay them, which lasted for two
weeks. On June 13 the committee rose. Even the fragments of this debate,
which may well have been one of the most notable in history, indicate
the care with which the members had studied governments of ancient and
modern times. There were many points of difference, but chief of them,
which nearly resulted in the collapse of the convention, was the
inevitable difficulty which always arises in the formation of a league
of States or an association of nations between the great and the little
States.

The five larger States had a population that was nearly twice as great
as the remaining eight States. Thus Virginia's population was nearly
ten-fold as great as Georgia. Moreover, the States differed greatly in
their material wealth and power. Nevertheless, all of them entered the
convention as independent sovereign nations, and the smaller nations
contended that the equality in suffrage and political power which
prevailed in the convention (in which each State, large or small, voted
as a unit), should and must be preserved in the future government. To
this the larger States were quite unwilling to yield, and when the
committee rose they reported, in substance, the Virginia plan, with the
proviso that representation in the proposed double-chambered Congress