New York Ratifies the Constitution
New York's ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1788 was a significant milestone in the establishment of the United States as a unified nation. After the American Revolution, New York emerged with a unique strategic advantage, possessing the best natural ocean port and key waterways that facilitated trade and commerce. However, political tensions arose between Governor George Clinton, who preferred a weaker central government to preserve state autonomy, and Alexander Hamilton, who advocated for a stronger national government. The inadequacies of the Articles of Confederation led to calls for a Constitutional Convention, where delegates debated the need for enhanced federal authority.
Despite initial resistance, Hamilton and his allies worked diligently to persuade the New York legislature and its delegates to support the proposed Constitution. The ratifying convention held in Poughkeepsie faced opposition from Clinton's faction, yet Hamilton's strategic advocacy and the momentum from other states' ratifications eventually swayed opinions. On July 26, 1788, New York ratified the Constitution by a narrow margin, becoming the 11th state to join the Union. This decision underscored the complexities of state versus federal power dynamics and was pivotal in shaping the future governance of the United States.
New York Ratifies the Constitution
New York Ratifies the Constitution
New York emerged from the American Revolution in a most favored position. Its strategic location, which made the state a critical objective in the war, promised to bring commercial advantages. New York City was the best natural ocean port in the United States, and the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers offered the easiest route to the vast interior of the new nation. Governor George Clinton was especially eager to exploit New York's potential without interference. He saw no reason for New York to support national programs that would inevitably draw money from his state's coffers to help improve the less well-situated states.
George Clinton thus regarded the Articles of Confederation, which bestowed only minimal powers on the central government, as a desirable arrangement. Despite assurances to General George Washington that he would support “every measure which has a tendency to cement the Union, and to give to the national councils that energy which may be necessary for the general welfare,” Clinton consistently stymied attempts to increase the powers of the central authorities. In particular, the governor was hostile to legislative proposals that offered the Continental Congress greater control over the customs revenues generated in the port of New York. Clinton agreed that the congress should receive the duties, but demanded that the state alone have the power to levy and collect those taxes.
Alexander Hamilton was the leading opponent of Clinton's parochial view of New York's role in the Union. Hamilton believed that New York's real greatness lay in becoming the cornerstone of a powerful nation rather than in remaining the most prosperous member of a collection of autonomous states.
In the years immediately following the American Revolution, the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation became apparent. The central government lacked the authority necessary to resolve elementary interstate problems, and even worse the national leaders were virtually impotent in international matters.
In 1786 the Continental Congress called for delegates from the states to meet in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss methods of strengthening the national government. Hamilton represented New York at the gathering, which emissaries from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia also attended, and proposed that the states bestow greater powers on the national government. Hamilton's exhortation stirred the Continental Congress to ask all the states to send delegates to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to discuss revision of the Articles of Confederation.
New York's legislature responded to the congress's request and dispatched Alexander Hamilton, Robert Yates, and John Lansing Jr. to Philadelphia. Clinton hoped that Yates and Lansing, who shared the governor's view of the Union, would be able to frustrate Hamilton's dream of a stronger federation. At the convention each state would have one vote, and if Yates and Lansing cooperated they could deprive the nationalists of New York's critical support.
At the Constitutional Convention, Hamilton supported a more powerful central government that could appoint state governors and veto state legislation. He even proposed that presidents and senators hold office for life. Unable to win support for his extreme program, Hamilton accepted the more modest proposals of James Madison of Virginia, who also desired an entirely new frame of government with greatly increased federal powers. Yates and Lansing rejected Madison's suggestions as going beyond the “revision” of the Articles of Confederation for which the New York legislature had commissioned them to participate. Both men withdrew from the convention and returned home with the apparent approval of Governor Clinton. Hamilton had no authority to cast New York's ballot independently, but he remained in Philadelphia and affixed his signature to the constitutional proposal finally adopted by the convention.
On September 28, 1787, the Continental Congress transmitted a draft of the Constitution, which required the assent of nine of the thirteen states for adoption, to the state legislatures. In New York the proposed Constitution divided both the political leadership and the populace. Clinton led the opponents of ratification, and sought to prevent the calling of a ratifying convention. Alexander Hamilton worked vigorously on behalf of the new Constitution and, together with Madison and his fellow New Yorker John Jay, produced the Federalist papers, which were a series of essays eloquently advocating the nationalist cause.
In January 1788 Egbert Benson proposed in the New York legislature that the state hold a convention to consider the proposed Constitution. The legislature accepted his suggestion, and 61 delegates gathered at the courthouse in Poughkeepsie on June 17, 1788. Advocates of ratification were initially disappointed because two-thirds of the body opposed adoption of the new frame of government. Nevertheless, Federalists like Hamilton, Jay, Robert Livingston, Robert Morris, and James Duane undertook the difficult task of changing their adversaries' minds.
Hamilton argued that the new Constitution would add strength and vigor to the government without weakening the liberties protected under the Articles of Confederation. Melancton Smith forcefully presented the Antifederalists' arguments. Smith particularly warned that a far-off national government that had the support of an army and navy and maintained contacts with the nations of Europe would pose a grave threat to popular liberty.
Clinton's supporters apparently had the convention under their control, but Hamilton slowly undercut their position. Besides using eloquent arguments, he established contacts with delegates meeting in constitutional conventions in Virginia and New Hampshire. When New Hampshire and Virginia respectively became the ninth and tenth states to ratify the Constitution, Hamilton announced to the Poughkeepsie gathering that the new Constitution would soon go into effect and warned that New York was in danger of being omitted from the Union.
The defeat of the Virginian Antifederalists, led by Patrick Henry, was a severe blow to Clinton. Support for the opponents of the Constitution quickly waned, and even Melancton Smith became a convert to federalism. Finally, on July 26, 1788, by a vote of 30 to 27, the Poughkeepsie convention ratified the Constitution. Although in a sense the original 13 colonies became states at the time that they declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776, they are generally ranked according to the order in which they ratified the Constitution. New York was the 11th to ratify the Constitution and is thus considered to be the 11th state.