But if this system were to be changed,--if the people of the States were to be represented in each branch of the national legislature,--some ratio of representation must be adopted, or the idea of connecting them as a nation with the government that was to be instituted must be abandoned. It was obviously for the interest of the larger States, such as Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts,--then the three leading States in point of population,--to have a proportionate representation of their whole inhabitants, without reference to age, sex, or condition. On the other hand, it was for the interest of the smaller States to insist on an equality of votes in the national legislature, or at least on the adoption of a ratio that would exclude some portions of the population of the great States. Some of the lesser States were exceedingly strenuous in their efforts to accomplish these objects, and more than once, in the course of the proceedings, declared their purpose to form a union on no other basis. In this posture of things the alternatives were, either to form no union at all, or only to form one between the large States willing to unite on the basis of proportionate representation; or to abolish the State governments, and throw the whole into one mass; or to leave the distinctions and boundaries between the different States, and adopt some equitable ratio of suffrage, as between the people of the several States, in the national legislature. The latter course was adopted in the committee, as to the first branch, by a vote of seven States in the affirmative, against three in the negative, one being divided.[21] The question was then to be determined, by what ratio the representation of the different States should be regulated; and here again any one of several expedients might be adopted. The basis of representation might be made to consist of the whole number of voters, or those on whom the States had conferred the elective franchise; or it might be confined to the white inhabitants, excluding all other races; or it might include all the free inhabitants of every race, excluding only the slaves; or it might embrace the whole population of each State. Some examination of each of these plans will illustrate the difficulties which had to be encountered.