The ratification of the United States Constitution was a near thing. Modern assumptions about the need for a strong government and more than 200 years of history testifying to the success of the government under the Constitution have obscured this fact. In all likelihood had there been a referendum on the Constitution, it would have been rejected. The authors of the Constitution understood the precariousness of their position and therefore created a ratification procedure intended to sidestep the amendment provisions of the Articles of Coneederation and to avoid direct action by the state legislatures. The Articles of Confederation mandated a unanimous decision by the states for amendment. The Constitution declared that the new form of government would be put into place once nine states had ratified and thus ignored the unanimous requirement that had stifled efforts to strengthen the articles by providing the Second Continental Congress the power to tax. Moreover, since the members of the Constitutional Convention feared that the state legislatures would hesitate to endorse a form of government that weakened the power of the states, the Constitution placed ratification in the hands of special state conventions. The Federalists planned to move as quickly as possible and engineered ratification within a year of adjournment of the Philadelphia convention.
The first wave of ratification was largely by those states that had the most to gain from the creation of a stronger union. Many people in the smaller states believed that they needed the protection of the larger republic and that with the Senate and the electoral college they would have a significant voice in national affairs. Delaware became the first state in the new union by ratifying the Constitution on December 7, 1787, with a vote of 30-0. New Jersey, which carried a heavy debt and had little revenue of its own, voted for ratification on December 18, 1787, with a 39-0 vote. Georgia, which at the time was a small state with borders exposed to the Spanish in Florida, powerful groups of Native Americans occupying the backcoun-try, and a large and potentially rebellious slave population, also ratified unanimously (26-0) on January 2, 1788. The final small state to join in early ratification was Connecticut, where there was some opposition to the Constitution from farmers and rural towns. But most merchants, lawyers, and clergy supported ratification, and on January 9, 1788, the Connecticut convention voted 128-40 for the Constitution.
The Constitution was a more contentious issue in the larger states. Pennsylvania Federalists managed to gain a speedy ratification before the opposition could really get organized. They pushed through the state assembly a call for a ratifying convention on September 28, 1787—the same day the Congress submitted the Constitution to the states. A quick election brought a Federalist majority to the state convention and ratification on December 12, 1787— just five days after Delaware. However, the ANTI-FederALIsts did not go down without a fight. The division in the state reflected the divisions that emerged over the Pennsylvania state constitution (see also constitutions, state) with the “constitutionalists” backing the democratic state constitution and opposing the United States Constitution and the “republicans,” who wanted to alter the state constitution and make it more conservative, becoming Federalists. Although the Federalists won in the convention voting, 46-23, the anti-Federalists attacked the Constitution for creating too much power in government at the expense of the liberty of the people and demanded a Bill of Rights similar to the guarantees written into the Pennsylvania constitution. After the state convention, the Pennsylvania anti-Federalists met in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and issued a manifesto that aptly summarized their objections to the Constitution and helped to provide an outline for the antiFederalist cause.
If by the end of January the Federalists had built up a certain momentum toward ratification, the real test of their political skills was still before them. Without Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia there could be no United States—and beyond these big three, South Carolina, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Rhode Island had still not ratified. In all of these states acceptance of the Constitution was problematical at best.
Maryland and South Carolina ratified the Constitution in early spring. Some of the most important leaders in Maryland opposed the Constitution, including two signers of the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776)—Samuel Chase and William Paca—and two members of the Constitutional Convention who had left before deliberations were complete and who refused to sign the document—Luther Martin and John Francis Mercer. However, few anti-Federalists attended the state convention, which on April 26, 1788, voted 63-11 to endorse the new government. South Carolina was divided between up country farmers who opposed the Constitution as undemocratic and low country planters and merchants who supported it. The legislature barely voted 76-75 to call the state convention, which ended up with a disproportionate number of low country representatives and met in Charleston where the Federalists were strongest. With many planters viewing the Constitution as protecting slavery, on May 23, 1788, South Carolina voted 149-73 in favor of the document.
By the time Maryland and South Carolina had acted, Massachusetts—the first of the final big three states—had ratified despite an anti-Federalist majority at the state convention. The Federalists were explicit about the economic benefits of belonging to a stronger union, and they argued that, under the Constitution, New England could capture the carrying trade of the South from the British. Such appeals to economic interests fueled the fears of many of the anti-Federalists, who decried the “lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men” who expected “to be managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and money into their own hands” so that they could “swallow up” the “little folks, like the great Leviathan. . . just as the whale swallowed up Jonah.” Despite such rhetoric, ratification ultimately turned on the question of a bill of rights and after winning over anti-Federalist leaders such as John Hancock and Samuel Adams with promises of amendments, Massachusetts ratified with the slim margin of 187168 on February 16, 1788.
The ninth state, which would put the new government into effect, to ratify was New Hampshire. Its convention met in February and voted 70-30 against ratification. Rather than calling it quits, the Federalists managed to get an adjournment until June. Many of the delegates had been instructed to vote no to the Constitution, and the Federalists hoped the extra time would bring a release from these obligations. A few months of an intensive Federalist newspaper campaign, along with the fact that eight other states had ratified, worked wonders. On June 21, 1788, the New Hampshire convention voted 57-47 in favor of the Constitution.
After New Hampshire’s action the new the Constitution had become a reality. Yet its viability remained in doubt as long as New York and Virginia were undecided. In both states a bill of rights became the main sticking point. An almost evenly divided convention met in Virginia on June 2, 1788. If the Federalists could boast the support of George Washington and James Madison, the anti-Federalists were led by Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and Benjamin Harrison. Henry headed the attack by declaring that the Constitution created a “consolidated government” that tore power away from the states and gave it to a central government. A final bitter compromise emerged. The Federalists succeeded in preventing ratification pending a list of amendments submitted by Henry, but they also had to promise to instruct Virginia’s congressional delegation to do everything it could to adopt the proposed bill of rights and amendments. The final vote was a close 89-79 on June 26, 1788.
The New York convention began on June 17 with the most powerful politician in the state, Governor George
Clinton, set against the Constitution backed by a clear majority of the delegates—46 of 64 delegates were allied to Clinton. Facing an uphill battle, the Federalists did everything they could to obtain ratification. They stalled for time as they awaited news from New Hampshire and Virginia. The Federalists twisted arms and made promises. They also threatened to have New York City secede from the state to join the union. The anti-Federalists decried the Constitution as a threat to the integrity of the state and as a vehicle for the rich and well-born to rule. And they lambasted the document for its failure to include a bill of rights. After news of ratification by New Hampshire and Virginia, some of the anti-Federalists realized that New York had to join the union. Leaders such as Melancton Smith reluctantly changed sides and voted for ratification, which passed by a 30-27 vote on July 26, 1788. The convention also voted unanimously to call for a second convention to reconsider the document, strengthen the rights of the states, and include a bill of rights.
In less than a year, 11 states had authorized the government of the United States under the Constitution. Two states, however, hesitated to ratify the Constitution. A North Carolina convention met from July 21 to August 4, 1788, and decided “neither to ratify nor reject the Constitution proposed for the government of the United States,” and insisted on amendments before any definitive action. But once the new government went into operation, the people of North Carolina changed their minds. A new convention met and, on November 21, 1789, ratified the document and reiterated the call for a declaration of rights with a 194-77 vote. Rhode Island was more obstinate. In March 1788 Rhode Islanders rejected even holding a state convention in a vote by towns 28-2. In 1790, when Congress threatened to treat the state as foreign territory and cut off direct trade, a new movement to ratify emerged. A convention met in March 1790, adopted a set of proposed amendments, and adjourned. The convention reconvened and, despite a strong anti-Federalist presence, on May 29, 1790, voted 34-32 to accept the Constitution.
Further reading: Linda Grant Depauw, The Eleventh Pillar: New York State and the Federal Constitution (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1966); Michael Allen Gillespie and Michael Lienesch, Ratifying the Constitution (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1989); Owen S. Ireland, Religion, Ethnicity, and Politics: Ratifying the Constitution in Pennsylvania (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996); Jackson Turner Main, The AntiFederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961); Robert Rutland, The Ordeal of the Constitution: The Antifederalists and the Ratification Struggle of 1787-1788 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965).
World History
