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 , 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, , New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U. Constitution would begin on March 4, Constitution—the Bill of Rights—and sent them to the states for ratification.
Ten of these amendments were ratified in In November , North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U. 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.
On May 29, , 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. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! On February 16, , under the pretext of sending reinforcements to the French army occupying Portugal, The controversial U.
Constitution have brought forth questions about the process for doing so. Article V of the United States Constitution outlines basic procedures for constitutional amendment.
To date, Congress has submitted 33 amendment proposals to the states, 27 of which were ratified. The 27 th Amendment, which prevents members of Congress from granting themselves pay raises during a current session, was ratified in — years after it was first submitted to the states. The following steps must be completed for an amendment proposed by Congress to be added to the United States Constitution.
Step 1. Passage by Congress. Proposed amendment language must be approved by a two-thirds vote of both houses.
Step 2. Notification of the states. The national archivist sends notification and materials to the governor of each state. Step 3. Ratification by three-fourths of the states. Ratification of the amendment language adopted by Congress is an up-or-down vote in each legislative chamber. A state legislature cannot change the language. They successfully countered most criticism. As for the lack of a bill of rights, Federalists argued that a catalogued list might be incomplete and that the national government was so constrained by the Constitution that it posed no threat to the rights of citizens.
Ultimately, during the ratification debate in Virginia, Madison conceded that a bill of rights was needed, and the Federalists assured the public that the first step of the new government would be to adopt a bill of rights.
It took 10 months for the first nine states to approve the Constitution. The first state to ratify was Delaware, on December 7, , by a unanimous vote, 30 - 0. The featured document is an endorsed ratification of the federal Constitution by the Delaware convention. The names of the state deputies are listed, probably in the hand of a clerk. The signature of the President of Delaware's convention, Thomas Collins, attests to the validity of the document, which also carries the state seal in its left margin.
Delaware's speediness thwarted Pennsylvania's attempt to be first to ratify in the hope of securing the seat of the National Government in Pennsylvania. The first real test for ratification occurred in Massachusetts, where the fully recorded debates reveal that the recommendation for a bill of rights proved to be a remedy for the logjam in the ratifying convention.
New Hampshire became the ninth state to approve the Constitution in June, but the key States of Virginia and New York were locked in bitter debates. Their failure to ratify would reduce the new union by two large, populated, wealthy states, and would geographically splinter it.
When a bill of rights was proposed in Congress in , North Carolina ratified the Constitution. Finally, Rhode Island, which had rejected the Constitution in March by popular referendum, called a ratifying convention in as specified by the Constitutional Convention.
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