In its original shape the Virginia plan went much further toward national consolidation than the Constitution as adopted. The reaction against the evils of the loose-jointed confederation, which Randolph so ably summed up, was extreme. According to the Virginia plan, the national legislature was to be composed of two houses, like the legislatures of the several states. The members of the lower house should be chosen directly by the people; members of the upper house, or Senate, should be elected by the lower house out of persons nominated by the state legislatures. In both the lower and the upper branches of this national legislature the votes were to be the votes of individuals, and no longer the votes of states, as in the Continental Congress. Under the articles of confederation each state had an equal vote, and two thirds were required for every important measure. Under the proposed Constitution each state was to have a number of representatives proportionate either to its wealth or to the number of its free inhabitants, and a bare majority of votes was to suffice to pass all measures in the ordinary course of business; and these rules were to apply both to the lower house and to the Senate. To adopt such a plan would overthrow the equality of the states altogether. It would give Virginia, the greatest state, sixteen representatives, where Georgia, the smallest state, had but one; and besides, as the votes were no longer to be taken by states, individual members could combine in any way they pleased, quite irrespective of state lines. It was not strange that to many delegates in the convention such a beginning should have seemed revolutionary. This impression was deepened when it was further proposed not only to clothe this national legislature with original powers of legislation in all cases to which the several states are incompetent, but also to allow it to set aside at discretion such state laws as it might deem unconstitutional. It is interesting to find Madison, whose Federalism afterward came to be so moderate, now appearing as the earnest defender of this extreme provision, so incompatible with state rights. But in Madison's mind at this moment, in the actual presence of the anarchy of the confederation, the only alternative which seemed to present itself was that of armed coercion. "A negative on state laws," he said, "is the mildest expedient that can be devised for enforcing a national decree. Should no such precaution be engrafted, the only remedy would be coercion. The negative would render the use of force unnecessary. This prerogative of the general government is the great pervading principle that must control the centrifugal tendency of the states, which, without it, will continually fly out of their proper orbits, and destroy the order and harmony of the political system." But these views were not destined to find favour with the convention, which finally left the matter to be much more satisfactorily