The action of
these conventions was deliberate, cautious, and careful. There was much
debate, and no little opposition to be conciliated. Eleven States,
however, ratified and adopted the new Constitution within the twelve
months immediately following its submission to them. Two of them
positively rejected it, and, although they afterward acceded to it,
remained outside of the Union in the exercise of their sovereign right,
which nobody then denied--North Carolina for nine months, Rhode Island
for nearly fifteen, after the new Government was organized and went into
operation. In several of the other States the ratification was effected
only by small majorities.
The terms in which this action was expressed by the several States and
the declarations with which it was accompanied by some of them are
worthy of attention.
Delaware was the first to act. Her Convention met on December 3, 1787,
and ratified the Constitution on the 7th. The readiness of this least in
population, and next to the least in territorial extent, of all the
States, to accept that instrument, is a very significant fact when we
remember the jealous care with which she had guarded against any
infringement of her sovereign Statehood. Delaware alone had given
special instructions to her deputies in the Convention not to consent to
any sacrifice of the principle of equal representation in Congress. The
promptness and unanimity of her people in adopting the new Constitution
prove very clearly, not only that they were satisfied with the
preservation of that principle in the Federal Senate, but that they did
not understand the Constitution, in any of its features, as compromising
the "sovereignty, freedom, and independence" which she had so especially
cherished.
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