North Carolina had not, as yet, ratified the Constitution. The first convention called in that State, in August, 1788, refused to ratify it without some previous amendments and a declaration of rights. In a second convention, however, called in November, 1789, this State adopted the Constitution. The State of Rhode Island had declined to call a convention; but finally, by a convention held in May, 1790, its assent was obtained; and thus all the thirteen original States became parties to the new government.
Thus was achieved another and still more glorious triumph in the cause of national liberty than even that which separated us from the mother-country. By it we fondly trust that our republican institutions will grow up, and be nurtured into more mature strength and vigor; our independence be secured against foreign usurpation and aggression; our domestic blessings be widely diffused, and generally felt; and our nation, as a people, be perpetuated, as our own truest glory and support, and as a proud example of a wise and beneficent government, entitled to the respect, if not to the admiration, of mankind.
Let it not, however, be supposed that a Constitution, which is now looked upon with such general favor and affection by the people, had no difficulties to encounter at its birth. The history of those times is full of melancholy instruction on this subject, at once to admonish us of past dangers, and to awaken us to a lively sense of the necessity of future vigilance. The Constitution was adopted unanimously by Georgia, New Jersey, and Delaware. It was supported by large majorities in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, and South Carolina. It was carried in the other States by small majorities; and especially in Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia by little more than a preponderating vote. Indeed, it is believed that in each of these States, at the first assembling of the conventions, there was a decided majority opposed to the Constitution. The ability of the debates, the impending evils, and the absolute necessity of the case seem to have reconciled some persons to the adoption of it, whose opinions had been strenuously the other way.
"In our endeavors," said Washington, "to establish a new general government, the contest, nationally considered, seems not to have been so much for glory as for existence. It was for a long time doubtful whether we were to survive, as an independent republic, or decline from our federal dignity into insignificant and withered fragments of empire."
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Called the "Constitutional Convention."—Ed.