both the Pinckneys; but the sounder opinion prevailed. On this point Hamilton was at one with Mason, Wilson, and Dickinson. The proposed assembly, said Mason, was to be, so to speak, our House of Commons, and ought to know and sympathize with every part of the community. It ought to have at heart the rights and interests of every class of the people, and in no other way could this end be so completely attained as by popular election. "Yes," added Wilson, "without the confidence of the people no government, least of all a republican government, can long subsist.... The election of the first branch by the people is not the corner-stone only, but the foundation of the fabric." "It is essential to the democratic rights of the community," said Hamilton, "that the first branch be directly elected by the people." Madison argued powerfully on the same side, and the question was finally decided in favour of popular election. [Sidenote: Antagonism between large states and small states.] [Sidenote: The New Jersey plan; a feeble palliative.] It was now the 4th of June, when the great question came up which nearly wrecked the convention before it was settled, after a whole month of stormy debate. This was the question as to how the states should be represented in the new Congress. On the Virginia plan, the smaller states would be virtually swamped. Unless they could have equal votes, without regard to wealth or population, they would be at the mercy of the great states. In the division which ensued, the four most populous states--Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina--favoured the Virginia plan; and they succeeded in carrying South Carolina with them. Georgia, too, which, though weak at that moment, possessed considerable room for expansion, voted upon the same side. On the other hand, the states of Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland--which were not only small in area, but were cut off from further expansion by their geographical situation--were not inclined to give up their equal vote in either branch of the national legislature. At this stage of the proceedings the delegation from New Hampshire had not yet arrived upon the scene. On several occasions the majority of the Maryland delegation went with the larger states, but Luther Martin, always opposed to the Virginia plan, usually succeeded in dividing the vote of the delegation. Of the New York members, Yates and Lansing, here as always, thwarted Hamilton by voting with the smaller states. Their policy throughout was one of obstruction. The members from Connecticut were disposed to be conciliatory; but New Jersey was obstinate and implacable. She knew what it was to be tyrannized over by powerful neighbours. The wrongs she had suffered from New York and Pennsylvania rankled in the minds of her delegates. Accordingly, in the name of the smaller states, William Paterson laid before the convention the so-called "New Jersey plan" for the amendment of the articles of