The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.
Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present,[16] the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth. In witness whereof, we have hereunto subscribed our names.
[Footnote 16: Rhode Island sent no delegates to the Federal
Convention.]
George Washington, President, and Deputy from VIRGINIA.
NEW HAMPSHIRE—John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman.
MASSACHUSETTS—Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King.
CONNECTICUT—William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman.
NEW YORK—Alexander Hamilton.
NEW JERSEY—William Livingston, David Brearly, William
Patterson, Jonathan Dayton.
PENNSYLVANIA—Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert
Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll,
James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris.
DELAWARE—George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson,
Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom.
MARYLAND—James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer,
Daniel Carroll.
VIRGINIA—John Blair, James Madison, Jr.
NORTH CAROLINA—William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight,
Hugh Williamson.
SOUTH CAROLINA—John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney,
Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler.
GEORGIA—William Few, Abraham Baldwin.
Attest: William Jackson, Secretary.
* * * * *
AMENDMENTS.[17]
ARTICLE I.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
[Footnote 17: Amendments I. to X. were proposed by Congress, Sept. 25, 1789, and declared in force Dec. 15, 1791.]