Page "James Madison" Paragraph 20

Those, like Madison, who thought democracy in the state legislatures was excessive and insufficiently " disinterested ", wanted sovereignty transferred to the national government, while those ( like Patrick Henry ) who did not think this a problem, wanted to fix the Articles of Confederation.

Madison was one of the only delegates who wanted to deprive the states of sovereignty completely, which he considered the only solution to the problem.

Though sharing the same goal as Madison, most other delegates reacted strongly against such an extreme change to the status quo.

Though Madison lost most of his battles over how to amend the Virginia Plan ( most importantly over the exclusion of the Council of Revision ), in the process he increasingly shifted the debate away from a position of pure state sovereignty.

Since most disagreements over what to include in the constitution were ultimately disputes over the balance of sovereignty between the states and national government, Madison's influence was critical.

Wood notes that Madison's ultimate contribution was not in designing any particular constitutional framework, but in shifting the debate toward a compromise of " shared sovereignty " between the national and state governments.