According to Michael Tomasky in his wonderful book If We Can Keep It, one proposal made at the Constitutional Convention for deciding how states would be represented in Congress was to assign representation by the amount of contributions the state made to the national treasury. The more contributions, the more members of Congress.
The proposal failed to get a the support of a majority of the delegates, and ultimately we ended up with the House and the Senate. Too bad. Can you imagine the power of states like New York, Massachusetts, California, Washington, Oregon, and Illinois. All those “taking” states like Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and South Dakota would be out of luck.
Incidentally, I have taught American Government and Constitutional Law for years, and I never knew that. I am constantly amazed at the limits of my knowledge.
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