Since the Congress in this new form was to be the sole visible agency of the National Government, possessing the legislative, the executive, and even such judicial powers as the Confederation possessed, representation in it had to be most carefully considered. The committee had provided that in determining questions the present method should be continued which allowed each State to have one vote; and in vain did the advocates of representation according to population plead against it. Franklin pointed to the effects of unequal representation in England and begged that the new Government might be started aright. "Let the smaller colonies give equal money and men," said he, "and then have an equal vote." His fellow-delegate from Pennsylvania, Dr. Rush, added the voice of prophecy when he declared that the States ought to represent the whole people; and that each State retaining one vote would tend to keep up colonial distinctions. "We are now a new nation," said he. "Our trade, language, customs, manners, don't differ more than they do in Great Britain. The more a man aims at serving America, the more he serves his colony. We have been too free with the word independence; we are dependent on each other, not independent States. I would not have it understood that I am pleading the cause of Pennsylvania. When I entered that door I considered myself a citizen of America." Truly here was the voice of unionism crying in the wilderness of individualism. It is the sentiment of a century later. The advocates of equal State representation had the advantage of precedent and of present practice. The large States had won in retaining their claims to the western lands. It was now the turn of the small States. In the final vote on representation, the four large States of Virginia, Massachusetts, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, containing over one-half the entire population of the thirteen States, were outvoted by the five small States of New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, and Georgia. The State and not individual voting was to continue in Congress. The medium-sized States of Connecticut, New York, and the two Carolinas, showed a "disinterested coolness" in the matter. Few took so gloomy a view of such an arrangement as did John Adams, who predicted that within ten years the Articles would be found as weak as a rope of sand in holding the people together. Being one of the chief causes of the Revolution, the power of direct taxation was a very sensitive point. To avoid this, the pernicious system of assessing quotas on the several States was continued. It was derived from the colonial custom, and might be expected to produce as little revenue and as much discord as it had done in those days. The Articles as adopted by the Congress were an improvement upon any effort of the kind previously attempted; but the results likely to follow the withdrawal of the pressure of war and the return of decentralising peace might easily be predicted.