Relationship of the Committee Reports to the Virginia Plan
Commentary
The editors faced an important decision with regard to the representation of the reports of the three Committees of early July. It is clear that the need for the committees arose out of disagreements on the issue of representation in the two chambers of the national legislature, and that the task of the committees was to come up with new language for the seventh and eighth resolutions of the Virginia Plan. For this reason, the editors considered translating the reports of the committees immediately into amendments to the Virginia Plan working document, for ease of reading and understanding. A close look at the records, however, suggests that each committee report was treated as a document to be amended and then agreed to or rejected in toto: in debate, delegates will often note that they find themselves unable to agree to "the report". Thus, while these documents arise out of the Virginia Plan, they must be considered separately until agreement has been reached on the issues that they treat.
Associated event
Report of the Grand Committee was copied
on 05 July 1787
Relationship of the Committee Reports to the Virginia Plan
Research Assistants' Commentary (1787 Constitutional Convention)
Cite as: Grace Mallon, ‘Relationship of the Committee Reports to the Virginia Plan’ in Research Assistants' Commentary (1787 Constitutional Convention), Quill Project at Pembroke College (Oxford, 2016), item 21.