Following the adoption of the foregoing resolution, Virginia
commissioned a delegation of her foremost men to represent her at
Philadelphia; among them, George Washington, James Madison, George
Mason, George Wythe, and Edmund Randolph. Under such inspiring
leadership, opposition was allayed, and in the convention which
followed, representatives finally gathered from every state except Rhode
Island.
Over this convention, George Washington was called to preside. Hesitancy
and weakness were banished by his words:
"It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps
another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the
people, we are for what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward
defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest
can repair; the event is in the hand of God."[351]
To the convention, Edmund Randolph, then Governor of the commonwealth,
presented the "Virginia Plan," which, though amended in many important
particulars, was the basis of our present constitution. The scheme of
government offered by Governor Randolph was the work of James Madison,
and because of his authorship and his great labors in connection with
its final preparation and adoption by the several states, he earned the
high appellation of "Father of the Constitution."
"The great mind of Madison," says John Fiske, "was one of the first to
entertain distinctly the noble conception of two kinds of government,
operating at one and the same time, upon the same individuals,
harmonious with each other, but each supreme in its own sphere. Such
is the fundamental conception of our partly Federal, partly National
Government, which appears throughout the Virginia Plan, as well as in
the constitution which grew out of it."[352]