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252 Second resolution. Representation. [i?87 change in the existing order ; it would put the States upon the footing of their relative importance. The smaller States, excepting the Caro- linas and Georgia, took their stand at once, and maintained it, in one way or another, to the end. The deputies of Delaware, the smallest of the States in importance, were indeed restrained by their commission, in express terms, from consenting to anything whereby the existing equality of the States would be disturbed. The House in committee took up the particular Randolph resolution on May 30. The language of the resolution was not acceptable to the leaders of the great States, though it ran in the right direction ; and various attempts were made to change it, in the way of broadening it. In this state of things Read moved that the resolution be post- poned ; at the same time reminding the committee that, if any change in the rule of suffrage should be made, it would be the duty of the deputies from Delaware, according to their commission, to retire from the Convention. Gouverneur Morris and Madison strongly asserted the determination of the larger States for proportional representation as fundamental. Whatever reason, said Madison, might have existed for equality under a " federal " union among sovereign States, it must cease when a "national" government was put in its place. In the former case, the Acts of Congress had depended so much on the co-operation of the States, that the States had rights nearly in proportion to their extent and importance ; in the latter case, the Acts of the government would take effect without calling upon the States for aid, and there would be the same reason for difference in representation of the States as there was in that of counties of varying importance within particular States. The motion for postponement was agreed to. On June 9 the subject was brought before the committee again, and debate was opened by Brearly. The same question, he said, had been much agitated in forming the Confederation, and had then been rightly settled ; and the smaller States had been saved. He admitted that the substitution of a ratio carried fairness on its face ; in reality it was unfair. Virginia would have sixteen votes, Georgia but one, out of a total of ninety members in the legislature. The large States would carry everything before them. In his own State (New Jersey), where large and small counties were united for electing members of the State legislature, the large counties always carried their point. He would not say that it was fair that Georgia should have an equal vote with Virginia ; the only remedy was to wipe out existing boundaries and have a new partition into thirteen equal parts. Paterson considered the proposition for proportional representation as striking at the existence of the smaller States. If they were to be a "nation," State distinctions must be abolished, the whole thrown into hotch-pot and an equal division made ; that was the only way to secure the equality desired by the greater States. There was no more reason