THE NEW JERSEY PLAN OR PATERSON RESOLUTIONS
When the Convention, in Committee of the Whole was evidently coming to a favorable conclusion in its consideration of the Virginia Plan, various representatives of the opposition—mainly from the smaller states—met together and drafted a series of resolutions, which was presented to the Convention on June 15. Paterson of New Jersey had apparently taken the lead in this movement and he was chosen to present the resolutions to the Convention. These resolutions have accordingly been known as the New Jersey Plan, or the Paterson Resolutions.[1]
Several copies of the New Jersey Plan are in existence, containing the usual minor differences in wording, spelling, and punctuation. But they also differ in more important particulars:—The Madison and Washington copies are practically identical, but the other copies contain two additional resolutions: a sixth, “that the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers within the several States ought to be bound by oath to support the Articles of Union;” and a ninth, “that provision ought to be made for hearing and deciding upon all disputes arising between the United States and an individual State respecting territory.” Also in the fourth resolution, the Madison and Washington copies read, that the Executive shall be “removable by Congress on application by a majority of the executives of the several States,” while the Brearley and Paterson copies read “removable on impeachment and conviction for malpractice or neglect of duty by Congress on application by a majority of the executives of the several States.”[2]
As already stated, the presentation of the New Jersey Plan resulted from a conference of several delegates, in which Paterson seemed to have been a leading spirit. Among the Paterson Papers, each in Paterson’s handwriting on a separate sheet of foolscap, are found the following documents:—
I
1. Resolved, That a union of the States merely federal ought to be the sole Object of the Exercise of the Powers vested in this Convention.[3]
- ↑ See Records, June 14–15, and Appendix A, CLVIII (5) and (10), CCXXXIII, CCCLXXVI.
- ↑ See Madison’s note at the end of his copy (Records, June 15).
- ↑ This resolution is partly crossed out in the original.
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