Following closely upon these efforts in Massachusetts, this principle found an illustrious advocate in Thomas Jefferson. In his "Notes on Virginia," written in 1781, he sharply exposes the inequalities of representation;[16] and a short time afterwards, when the victory at Yorktown had rescued Virginia from invasion and secured the independence of the United Colonies, he prepared the draught of a Constitution for his native State, which, disowning the English system, and recognizing the very principle that had failed in Massachusetts, expressly provided that "the number of delegates which each county may send shall be _in proportion to the number of its qualified electors_; and the whole number of delegates for the State shall be so _proportioned to the whole number of qualified electors in it_, that they shall never exceed three hundred nor be fewer than one hundred.... If any county be reduced in its qualified electors below the number authorized to send one delegate, let it be annexed to some adjoining county."[17] This proposition, which is substantially the Rule of Three, did not find favor in Virginia, which State, like Massachusetts, was not yet prepared for such a charter of electoral equality; but it still stands as a monument at once of its author and of the true system of representation. [16] Query XIII. [17] Notes on Virginia, Appendix, No. II.: Works, Vol. VIII., p. 443. The American system, though first showing itself in Massachusetts and Virginia, found its earliest practical exemplification a few years later in the Constitution of the United States. By the Articles of Confederation each State was entitled to send to Congress not less than two nor more than seven representatives, and in the determination of questions each State had one vote only. This plan was rejected by the framers of the new Constitution, and another was adopted, till then untried in the history of the world. It was declared that "representatives and direct taxes shall be _apportioned_ among the several States which may be included within this Union _according to their respective numbers_": not according to property, not according to territory, not according to any corporate rights, _but according to their respective numbers_. And this system has continued down to our day, and will continue immortal as the Union itself. Here is the Rule of Three actually incorporated into the Representative System of the United States.