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Chapter IV - Ratification of the Constitution
Ratification of the Constitution
In spite of this controversy, the ratification process went smoothly at first. Delaware became the first state of the new Union on December 7, 1787, and by January of 1788, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut had also ratified the Constitution. After a bitter conflict between small farmers and urban elites, Massachusetts accepted the Constitution by a majority of a mere nineteen votes out of the 355 votes cast. In June of 1788, New Hampshire, the ninth and final state needed for ratification, gave the Federalists a victory by ten votes. However, even though the required nine states had voted for ratification, both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists realized that the Constitution needed the approval of the social and economic giants, Virginia and New York. Despite a courageous effort by Anti-Federalist Patrick Henry, the pro-Constitution groups in Virginia won 89 to 79. After being promised that a bill of rights would be added, New York ratified the Constitution by three votes on July 6. North Carolina and Rhode Island were the only obstinate states that refused to concede. North Carolina withheld ratification until a bill of rights was actually submitted to Congress, and Rhode Island, cantankerous as ever, continued to hold out until May 29, 1790, with the closest margin of all the states - two votes.
Breathing a sigh of relief, the Confederation Congress selected New York as the location for the new government and set a timetable for elections. In October of 1788 the Confederation Congress convened for the last time and then disbanded forever. Ben Franklin skeptically commented to a friend on the orderly transfer of power: "Our Constitution is in actual operation. Everything appears to promise that it will last, but in this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes." George Washington, even more suspicious than Franklin about the future of the new governments privately told one of the delegates, "I do not expect the Constitution to last more than twenty days."
In the tumultuous years between 1760 and 1790, our thirteen colonies rallied to defy British authority, defeated the world's strongest army and created a unique political system which would last into the present era. Up until the mid-1780s most Americans believed "that government which governs best governs least," but by the late 1780s that viewpoint had been seriously challenged. Instead of unity, dissension between various special interest groups dominated American society after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
By 1790 the elite planter and merchant classes had wrested power from the more democratic-minded small farmers and urban artisans, and consolidated that power by excluding well over three-fifths of the American population - slaves and women - from the political process. Thus, the United States began its official history as a nation divided by class, race, gender and economic interests with a Constitution that winked at slavery, ignored women and scorned the "unpropertied masses." Issues of slavery, states' rights and economic interests unresolved by the Constitution of 1787 would by 1860 tear apart the very fabric of American society.
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