As we observe Constitution Week, Sept. 17-23, the Poplar Bluff Chapter National Society Daughters of the American Revolution wishes to share the following articles as a reminder of how important our nation’s constitution is. Materials come from NSDAR resources.
__Day four: The Bill of Rights__
When writing the Constitution, Federalists thought that a Bill of Rights was unnecessary, while the Anti-Federalists, fearing a strong central government, refused to ratify the Constitution unless a Bill of Rights was written. North Carolina ratified the Constitution only after the newly inaugurated president, George Washington, assured them that the Congress would immediately set about creating one. On Sept. 25, 1789, the First Federal Congress of the United States proposed to the State Legislatures 12 amendments to the Constitution. The first two, concerning the number of constituents for each Representative and the compensation of Congressmen, were not ratified. Articles 3-12, known as the Bill of Rights, became the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution and contained guarantees of essential rights and liberties omitted in the crafting of the original document.
During colonial and early days of our country, bells — church bells, firehouse bells, town and city hall bells — were used to call people together, to alert them to some important announcement or event. Bells called the people of Philadelphia together to hear the Declaration of Independence read publicly for the first time on July 4, 1776. Then, again, just over 11 years later, on Sept. 17 bells were used to call people to hear the first public reading of our new Constitution. The most significant statements they heard were in the Preamble to the Constitution which outlined the organization of our republic and the rule of law that would hold the new country together.
George Washington the drafted his “letter of transmittal” to the states for ratification, persuasively outlining the need for the adoption of this new constitution and pointing to the main problems that were in the failed Articles of Confederation. The second paragraph of his letter reads, “The friends of our country have long seen and desired that the power of making war, peace and treaties, that of levying money and regulating commerce, and the correspondent executive and judicial authorities should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the Union: but the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men is evident — Hence results the necessity of a different organization.”
The Delaware legislature became the first to ratify the Constitution by a vote of 30-0 on December 7, 1787. The ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified it on June 21, 1788, and the new Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789.
Here is the order in which the states ratified the U.S. Constitution.
1. Delaware - Dec. 7, 1787
2. Pennsylvania - Dec. 12, 1787
3. New Jersey - Dec. 18, 1787
4. Georgia - Jan. 2, 1788
5. Connecticut - Jan. 9, 1788
6. Massachusetts - Feb. 6, 1788
7. Maryland - April 28, 1788
8. South Carolina - May 23, 1788
9. New Hampshire - June 21, 1788
10. Virginia - June 25, 1788
11. New York - July 26, 1788
12. North Carolina - Nov. 21, 1789
13. Rhode Island - May 29, 1790