[57]

First page of the original handwritten copy of the U.S. Constitution
George Washington witnesses Gouverneur Morris sign the Constitution while Madison sits in front of Benjamin Franklin and next to Robert Morris in John Henry Hintermeister's  1925 painting, Foundation of the American Government.[58]
Leading up to the 1787 ratification debates for the Constitution,[59] Madison worked with other members of the Virginia delegation, especially Edmund Randolph and George Mason, to create and present the Virginia Plan, an outline for a new federal constitution.[60] It called for three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), a bicameral Congress (consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives) apportioned by population, and a federal Council of Revision that would have the right to veto laws passed by Congress.[61] The Virginia Plan did not explicitly lay out the structure of the executive branch, but Madison himself favored a strong single executive.[62] Many delegates were surprised to learn that the plan called for the abrogation of the Articles and the creation of a new constitution, to be ratified by special conventions in each state, rather than by the state legislatures. 