Georgia Ratifies the Constitution
Georgia ratified the U.S. Constitution on January 2, 1788, becoming the fourth state to do so. This decision was made by a specially elected convention that voted unanimously in favor of the new form of government. Although Georgia was the youngest of the original colonies, its ratification was an important step towards the establishment of a stronger national government. The state's delegation at the Constitutional Convention included notable figures such as Abraham Baldwin and William Few, both of whom played significant roles in the discussions and decision-making processes. Georgia's ratification was influenced by local conditions, including ongoing conflicts with Native American tribes and a desire for support from the federal government. The ratifying convention, held in Augusta, was a diverse assembly of delegates representing various sectors of society, including planters and merchants. Their unanimous vote was celebrated with a cannon salute, marking Georgia's formal entry into the United States as part of the new constitutional framework.
Georgia Ratifies the Constitution
Georgia Ratifies the Constitution
On January 2, 1788, Georgia became the fourth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Like Delaware and New Jersey before it, Georgia sanctioned the new form of government by the unanimous vote of a specially elected convention. Georgia, founded in 1733, was the youngest of the colonies, and its action was not so crucial to the Constitution's viability as the ratification of such states as Pennsylvania (which had been second to ratify) or Massachusetts (which would be sixth); but it did mark another important step along the path to stronger national government.
When the Continental Congress called for a Constitutional Convention to meet in May of 1787, the Georgia legislature appointed six delegates to represent its interests at the Philadelphia meeting. Former governor George Walton and Nathaniel Pendleton either declined to serve or failed to attend the Philadelphia caucus, and their absence reduced the size of the contingent to four: Abraham Baldwin, William Few, William Houstoun and William Pierce. These men had commissions that authorized them to take whatever steps appeared necessary to render the Articles of Confederation adequate to meet the requirements of Georgia.
Abraham Baldwin was the son of a Connecticut blacksmith who went heavily into debt in order to educate his children. The young Baldwin graduated from Yale in 1772, studied theology, and taught divinity at his alma mater until 1779. He then entered the army and served as a chaplain until the conclusion of the War for Independence. Baldwin, who studied law during his military service, moved to Augusta, Georgia, in 1784, won a seat in the state legislature, and served two terms in the Continental Congress. Baldwin sponsored a bill to establish Franklin College, now the University of Georgia, and became the first president of that institution.
William Few was the son of a poor Maryland farmer who moved to North Carolina during William's early years. Debts eventually destroyed the family farm, and William Few moved to Georgia in 1776. After the American Revolution Few began educating himself in the study of the law, and he won a seat in the state legislature as well as election to two terms in the Continental Congress.
William Houstoun was a young member of Georgia's emerging planter aristocracy. Some of his relatives had been high royal officials during Georgia's colonial period, and William Houstoun attended the Inner Temple in London to study law. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, Houstoun returned to Georgia and became a staunch patriot. Houstoun, who combined the practice of law with the ownership of a plantation, was the wealthiest member of the Georgia delegation, but he lacked liquid capital and had heavy debts. William Pierce said of Houstoun that “Nature seems to have done more for his corporeal than mental powers. His person is striking, but his mind very little improved with useful or elegant knowledge.”
William Pierce was the fourth member of the Georgia delegation. Born, probably in Georgia, about 1740, he served with distinction in the Revolution and emerged from the army in 1783 as a major with special citations and a sword from Congress. After the war Pierce became a merchant engaged in the import-export business. Pierce, who was a member of the Continental Congress, created a series of witty and perceptive character sketches of the members of the convention, but declined to describe himself. Instead he left evaluation of his personality to “those who may choose to speculate on it, to consider it in any light their fancy or imagination may depict.” Pierce left the convention in mid-July to go to New York in a futile attempt to save his sagging business fortunes; he went bankrupt in 1788 and died in debt in 1789.
Georgia was a prosperous state during the 1780s. Its population doubled during the decade, as did the volume of exports from its port at Savannah. Georgia owned a large expanse of western territory, and in the convention usually aligned itself with the larger states. Not surprisingly, Georgia, as a state in which black slaves formed an important element of the labor force and of the population, voted against any constitutional interference with the slave trade and suggested in vain that blacks be counted equally with whites for purposes of allotting representatives.
Abraham Baldwin, the most able member of the Georgia delegation, perhaps saved the convention from collapse during the heated debate over the nature of representation in the upper and lower houses of the national legislature. On July 2, the delegates voted on a proposal to give each state equal representation in the upper house. Initially five states voted in the affirmative, and six states, including Georgia, voted in the negative. Baldwin, who feared that the small states might leave the convention in protest, decided to change his ballot to produce a tie vote with five states in favor of the proposal, five states opposed to it, and the Georgia delegation equally divided. Faced with this situation, the convention named a committee, which eventually worked out a compromise suitable to both large and small states.
The Constitutional Convention ended on September 17, 1787. In October, a copy of the proposed form of government reached Georgia for its consideration. The legislature, in emergency session to prepare the state for imminent attack by the Creek Indians, called for a ratifying convention to meet in Augusta on Christmas Day. In the elections for delegates to the convention, which took place in the first week of December, supporters of the Constitution won a sweeping victory. Georgians looked upon the proposed new government as the best hope of assistance in their continuing frontier Indian wars, which threatened the very existence of the state.
Georgia's ratifying convention met as scheduled on December 25, 1787. The delegates, who included two physicians, two lawyers, three merchants, ten planters, three small farmers, three frontiersmen, one full-time public officeholder, and two other delegates about whom little is known, spent approximately one week in formal proceedings. On January 2, 1788, the convention voted unanimously to adopt the Constitution. To celebrate the occasion, there was a cannon salute of 13 shots, one for each of the 13 states.
Georgia, like the other colonies that separated from Great Britain, became a part of the United States in 1776 with the issuance of the Declaration of Independence. As a matter of convenience, however, historians have established the chronology in which states entered the Union in terms of the order of their ratification of the Constitution. They accordingly describe Georgia as the fourth state to join the Union.