Who authored the Virginia Plan?

• A. James Madison
• B. James Monroe
• C. William Paterson
• D. George Mason

Answer: (A)

The Virginia Plan was the proposal that helped shape the structure of a new national government, emphasizing a strong central authority with three branches and a two-house legislature based on state population. James Madison is the person most closely associated with this plan because he wrote the text and was a leading architect of its ideas. Although Edmund Randolph presented the plan to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, Madison drafted it and is credited as its author. That connection is why Madison is the correct answer.

James Monroe, another Virginian delegate, was involved in the discussions but did not author the plan. William Paterson authored the competing New Jersey Plan, which favored equal representation for each state. George Mason contributed as a key Virginian organizer and advocate for protection of individual rights, but he did not author the Virginia Plan.