Rhode Island Ratifies the Constitution
On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 states to ratify the United States Constitution. Initially, the state demonstrated reluctance to join the Union, with its legislature rejecting calls for a ratifying convention seven times and even defeating the Constitution in a plebiscite. Rhode Island's prosperity under the Articles of Confederation, which allowed it to maintain control over trade without interference from a central government, contributed to this hesitance. The Antifederalist sentiment was strong, with many residents skeptical of a powerful central government and protective of their existing economic and political interests.
Pressure mounted as the national government began to operate and other states ratified the Constitution, leaving Rhode Island increasingly isolated. After congressional measures threatened to impose tariffs on goods entering from Rhode Island, the state finally convened a ratifying convention. Despite initial opposition, the delegates ultimately accepted the Constitution by a narrow vote of 34 to 32. This event marked Rhode Island's formal entry into the Union, establishing the state as the 13th member of the United States, a status that solidified its role in the newly formed nation.
Rhode Island Ratifies the Constitution
Rhode Island Ratifies the Constitution
Rhode Island, on May 29, 1790, became the last of the 13 original states to ratify the United States Constitution. In the time intervening since the end of the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in September 1787, the Rhode Island legislature seven times refused to call a ratifying convention, and the Antifederalist forces defeated the Constitution once in a plebiscite. Only after the national government had been in operation for more than a year, with George Washington as president, did Rhode Island call a convention. The convention delegates acquiesced in the new arrangement by the narrow vote of 34 to 32.
Rhode Island did not respond to a congressional summons in 1787 to send delegates to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia. The smallest state was faring well under the Articles of Confederation, which gave each state one vote in the Congress regardless of the size of its population and required unanimous approval for any changes in the frame of government. Economically, Rhode Island prospered in the years after the American Revolution, and its success was due in part to congressional impotence to regulate foreign trade. In 1782 Rhode Island's rejection doomed a proposed amendment that would have given the Confederation Congress the power to levy a five percent duty on imports. Rhode Island earned its livelihood in commerce, and feared that it would lose control of its destiny under such a provision. Of equal importance, the little state did not want to lose the revenues that accrued from its own schedule of import duties, and were used by the state to retire the Revolutionary War debts that it owed to its citizens.
Perhaps as many as three-fourths of the Rhode Island electorate owned state securities, which the government had pledged to honor in full. Returns from commercial duties serviced most of the debt in the early postwar period, but the state had to resort to sizable direct taxation on property in ensuing years as the burden of interest increased severalfold. Rhode Islanders were in the awkward position of paying heavy taxes to pay interest on money owed to themselves, and in 1786 they resorted to issuing large amounts of paper money in the hope of being able to liquidate the debt in two to seven years.
The state's residents initially found little that seemed attractive in either the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 or the Constitution that its delegates produced. To begin with, these New Englanders were the heirs of a strong democratic tradition, and they instinctively distrusted the powerful central government called for by the Constitution. In addition, they were in the midst of their paper money plan, which went into operation in September 1787. At such a time Rhode Islanders could have little enthusiasm for the new frame of government and its conservative monetary policies, which would not countenance their state's experiment in debt retirement.
In its October 1787 session, one month after the conclusion of the Philadelphia convention, Rhode Island's legislature met and began its evaluation of the Constitution. To the chagrin of the Federalists, who favored the new scheme of government, the Antifederalists dawdled and put off consideration of proposals to call a ratification convention until the February session. The Rhode Island legislature also ordered the printing and distribution of 1,000 copies of the Constitution so that “the freemen may have an opportunity of forming their sentiments” of the new government and communicate these feelings to the assembly.
At the February session in 1788, William Bradford of Bristol, Henry Marchant and George Champlin of Newport, and Benjamin Arnold and Jabez Bowen of Providence spoke in favor of the convocation of a ratifying convention. The Antifederalists, led by Jonathan J. Hazard of Charlestown and Job Comstock of East Greenwich, countered their arguments and defeated their proposal by a large majority. The opponents of the Constitution adopted a substitute proposal by a vote of 43 to 15 to submit the Constitution directly to the freemen of Rhode Island in their town meetings.
Meeting on March 24, 1788, the Rhode Island freemen defeated the Constitution proposal by a vote of 2,708 to 237. Federalists generally refused to participate in these proceedings and their abstention accounts for part of the lopsided margin of victory. Rather than cast their ballots, supporters of the Constitution, especially in the cities of Providence and Newport, issued resolutions calling for a ratification convention like those held in the other states. Also in March, Federalists in the state legislature repeated their proposal for the convocation of a ratifying convention, again in vain, as the opposition won by a 27 -vote margin. Despite this defeat, the supporters of the new government remained undaunted and took heart when New Hampshire on June 21, 1788, ratified the Constitution. Victory in New Hampshire provided the Federalists with the minimum of nine states necessary to put the new Constitution into effect on a national level.
Five more times between 1788 and 1789, Antifederalists in the Rhode Island legislature defeated Federalist proposals for the calling of a ratifying convention. The opponents of the Constitution won by a vote of 40 to 14 in October 1788, by 44 to 12 in December 1788, and by similarly one-sided margins in March, June, and late fall 1789. Despite these victories, every day of successful operation of the United States under the new Constitution brought increased pressure on Rhode Island to join the Union.
In the summer of 1789, the United States Congress decreed that after January 15, 1790, all goods entering the United States through members of the old confederation that had refused to ratify the Constitution (namely North Carolina and Rhode Island) should be taxed as items entering from foreign countries, unless they had actually been made within the two states' own boundaries. On a more positive note, Congress in October 1789 sent to the governors of the various states 12 proposed constitutional amendments designed to placate critics who feared that the central government would limit civil liberties. Reacting to these proposals, North Carolina reversed itself, and on November 21, 1789, accepted the new federal government. North Carolina's capitulation left Rhode Island isolated in an untenable position as the year 1790 approached.
Reconvening on January 11, 1790, the Rhode Island legislature once again took up the issue of the Constitution. After much debate the Federalist proposal to call a ratifying convention won in the state assembly on January 15 by a vote of 34 to 29. The next day, a Saturday, the state senate received the measure from the assembly, but rejected it. Unhappy with this outcome, the assembly met in special session on Sunday and repeated its call for a convention. With one Antifederalist-who was a preacher -absent because he objected to the conduct of governmental affairs on Sunday, the senate then reconsidered the bill. Governor John Collins, although nominally an Antifederalist, cast the deciding ballot in favor of the convocation of a convention.
Winning approval for a ratifying convention was but the beginning of the contest for Rhode Island Federalists. On election day, February 9, 1790, the opponents of the Constitution elected a majority of the delegates chosen for the ratifying convention, which met on March 1 at the old state house in South Kingstown. The Antifederalists elected Lieutenant Governor Owen as chairman of the convention. Owen and Jonathan J. Hazard provided the Antifederalists with leadership, and Jabez Bowen and Henry Marchant led the Federalists.
The Antifederalist leaders were not confident of victory. Indeed, there were some grounds for their fears that less determined delegates would be swayed by the Federalists, who suggested that the convention ratify the Constitution in the expectation that beneficial amendments, including a Bill of Rights, would soon be added to the Constitution. Hoping that an Antifederalist victory in the spring legislative elections would impress the weak of spirit, the opponents of the Constitution voted to adjourn the convention until May 24, 1790.
As expected, the Antifederalists scored a sweeping victory in the April 21 elections, but other political developments diminished the significance of their victory. By the time the delegates to the ratifying convention had reassembled, they had learned that the Congress was considering punitive legislation against Rhode Island. Many federal legislators wanted to end commercial relations between the Union and the state and to demand from recalcitrant Rhode Island quick repayment of its Revolutionary War debt. Upset by these possibilities, the leaders of Providence made it known that the city was ready, if the convention rejected the Constitution, to secede from Rhode Island and seek accommodation with the United States.
The second Rhode Island ratifying convention lasted less than one week. Confronted by threats from both Congress and the city of Providence, the delegates could not listen only to the popular voice expressed in the spring elections. Late in the afternoon of May 29, 1790, the delegates voted 34 to 32 to accept the Constitution, and the governor immediately informed President Washington of the news. A special session of the state legislature quickly chose Rhode Island's first two United States Senators, and in August the people elected delegates to the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
Rhode Island and the 12 other American colonies became states in 1776 when they declared their independence from England. However, for purposes of establishing the chronological order in which these states entered the Union, historians customarily use the dates on which they ratified the Constitution. According to this computation, Rhode Island is the 13th member of the United States.