For these reasons, they must go as far, in order to attain stability and permanency, as republican principles would admit. He would therefore have the Senate and the executive hold their offices during good behavior. Such a system would be strictly republican, so long as these offices remained elective and the incumbents were subject to impeachment. The term _monarchy_ could not apply to such a system, for it marks neither the degree nor the duration of power. And in order to obviate the danger of tumults attending the election of an executive who should hold his office during good behavior, he proposed that the election should be made by a body of electors, to be chosen by the people, or by the legislatures of the States. The Assembly he proposed to have chosen by the people of the States for three years. The legislative _powers_ of the general government he desired to have extended to all subjects; at the same time, he did not contemplate the total abolition of the State governments, but considered them essential, both as subordinate agents of the general government, and as the administrators of private justice among their own citizens.[56] His conclusions were, first, that it was impossible to secure the Union by any modification of a federal government; secondly, that a league, offensive and defensive, was full of certain evils and greater dangers; thirdly, that to establish a general government would be very difficult, if not impracticable, and liable to various objections. What then was to be done? He answered, that they must balance the inconveniences and the dangers, and choose that system which seemed to have the fewest objections. The plan which Hamilton then read to the Convention, the principal features of which have thus been stated, was designed to explain his views, but was not intended to be offered as a substitute for either of the two others then under consideration. The issue accordingly remained unchanged; and that issue lay between the Virginia and the New Jersey plans, or between a system of equal representation by States, and a system of proportionate representation of the people of the States. Besides this radical difference, the Virginia plan contemplated two houses, while the New Jersey plan proposed to retain the existing system of a single body.