1788
U.S. Constitution Ratified
New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to
ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the
law of the land.
By 1786, defects in the post-Revolutionary War Articles of
Confederation were apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign
and domestic commerce. Congress endorsed a plan to draft a new constitution,
and on May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention convened at Independence
Hall in Philadelphia. On September 17, 1787, after three months of debate
moderated by convention president George Washington, the new U.S. constitution,
which created a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks
and balances, was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of
the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become
binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states.
Beginning on December 7, five states–Delaware, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However,
other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to
reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection
of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other
states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments
would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in
Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New
Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was
subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on
March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New
York in July.
On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States
adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them
to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791.
In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S.
Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was
critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the
Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations
with the state.
On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the
document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States.
Today the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in
the world.