After the U.S. became an independent nation, it drafted the Articles of Confederation as a general guideline for the colonies to run their new country. However, because the colonies had just gained freedom from a tyrannical, oppressive government, they shied away from creating a strong national government. Thus, the Articles were weak. After Shays' rebellion (an armed uprising), they knew that the Articles had to be reformed if their nation were to survive. So, they decided to form a written Constitution at the Constitutional Convention.

When first assembled in 1787, the Constitutional Convention had a plan for the new government issued by delegate Edmund Randolph of Virginia. The Virginia Plan, which advocated a multi-tiered legislature based on total population, became the framework for all subsequent debates at the Convention. The Virginia Plan was countered by the New Jersey Plan, which advocated for all states to have equal representation, leading to the compromise of a lower house based on population and an upper house with each state having equal representation.

The Articles of Confederation was a loose assemblage of the thirteen different states of the newly independent United States of America. With one representative from each state in Congress and few enforcement mechanisms, states were completely free to ignore federal laws regarding taxation, trade, or raising of armies. The 1787 Constitutional Convention was held to fix many of these issues, especially in light of events like Shays' Rebellion and financial crises.

At the Constitutional Convention, there were disagreements on how the Legislative Branch should be established. The big states, like New York and Virginia, favored a directly proportional representation structure based on the population of each state—this plan was called the Virginia Plan; whereas smaller states, like New Jersey, favored a system whereby each state would have equal representation in Congress regardless of the size of it’s population. This disagreement was remedied through the Connecticut Compromise, which established a bicameral legislature with a lower and upper house. This created a House of Representatives based on the population of each state, and a Senate, where each state has equal membership, regardless of population size. Additionally, the Framers could not agree on how to count slaves for the purposes of representation. New York, a free state, would have favored not counting slaves as citizens for purposes of representation in order to limit the ability of the South to affect government policy. This issue was remedied by the Three-fifths Compromise, which stated that each slave counted for three-fifths of a person for the sake of representation.

The Northwest Ordinance took place during the Articles of Confederation. It is considered by many historians to have had the most lasting impact of this period of American history. The Ordinance defined the original process by which new states could be admitted into the Union. It prohibited slavery in the territories, but allowed the states to vote on the issue of slavery once they joined the union.

Article 5 of the United States Constitution is concerned with establishing the process by which amendments can be proposed and ratified to alter the laws in the Constitution. An amendment, according to the Constitution, can be adopted and sent to the states for approval in one of the following ways: a two-thirds majority of the Senate and House; a two-thirds vote in a national convention of the states. To become part of the Constitution, it must then be passed by three-fourths of the states at a state ratifying convention.

The Connecticut Compromise was part of the debate on the ratification of the Constitution and the construction of the new Legislative Branch. The Compromise created a bicameral legislature in the United States with a lower and an upper house. The lower house would have proportional representation for each state based on its population, whereas the upper house would have an equal number of representatives for each state. The lower house was called The House of Representatives and the upper house was called The Senate.

The New Jersey Plan, as opposed to the Virginia Plan, called for a creation of a unicameral legislature in which each state has one vote to use in the enactment of laws. The Virginia Plan wanted proportional representation so that states with a greater population would have a greater say in the direction of the country. Logically it follows that the smaller states would have been much more likely to support the New Jersey plan. California was not a state at the time of this debate, and New York, Virginia, and North Carolina were three of the most populous states in the union. So the correct answer is Delaware.

This is a slightly tricky question purely based off of the competing answers. The Connecticut (or Great) Compromise essentially took elements of the Virginia Plan and elements of the New Jersey Plan, and smashed them together.

The Virginia Plan advocated, among other things, a bicameral legislature of which both chambers would be apportioned based off of population. The lower chamber would be elected by the people of each state, and then the upper chamber would be selected through a two-step process: (1) each state legislature would nominate candidates and (2) the lower chamber would elect the upper chamber from the list generated by the lower. This arrangement favored big states, as it was based purely off of population (remember: at the time, VA was considered a large state, population-wise).

The New Jersey Plan, on the other hand, took a rather dim view of the whole apportionment-by-population thing, and essentially advocated for a unicameral legislature where each state was given an equal number of delegates, regardless of size (essentially, it was a reaffirmation of the Articles of Confederation, just with some tweaks here and there).

The Great Compromise took elements of both to form the government that we have today, as follows: the lower chamber (the House) was to be apportioned based off of the population of each of the states (VA Plan), and the upper chamber (the Senate) was to be equally divided regardless of population of each of the states (NJ Plan).

Virginia as one of the most populous stats at the time proposed that both houses of congress, representation would be based on population. New Jersey proposed equal representation. Connecticut proposed one house based on population and another on equality. Ohio wasn't a state yet, and Rhode Island did not send delegates to the Constitutional Convention.