Sold – Connecticut Governor: Rejection of the Constitution by Rhode Island Will

Americans felt that the Treaty of Paris in 1783 did not mean the completion of the goals of the Revolution. As the poet Joel Barlow explained, "The revolution is but half completed. Independence and government were the two objects contended for; and but one is yet obtained."

By 1787, attainment of that second object seemed no closer, so to nationalists such as Washington, Franklin, Hamilton and Madison, a new political system was needed. To that end, the Constitutional Convention, which met at Philadelphia in September 1787, decided to try a different form of government. Nine states would need to ratify the Constitution for it to take effect. However, ratification was not a foregone conclusion, as there was strong opposition from men of the stature of Patrick Henry and John Hancock, whose most potent argument against the Constitution was that it lacked a bill of rights.

By the time the following letter was written by Samuel Huntington, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and proponent of the Constitution, eight states had ratified, including Connecticut. However, neighboring Rhode Island had rejected the Constitution in a referendum. This was a cause of great concern to friends of the Constitution, lest it set a precedent. Yet word from the states still to vote on ratification, as Huntington indicates here, was that the rejection in Rhode Island was not going to be a decisive blow against the Constitution.

Autograph Letter Signed as Governor of Connecticut, Norwich, Conn., April 24, 1788, to Congressman Stephen M. Mitchell, showing that in the fading days of the Continental Congress it was in such a pathetic state that members couldn’t take their seats for want of the funds to get there, and alluding to the impact of the situation in Rhode Island. The Joseph Platt Cooke, Pierpont Edwards and James Wadsworth mentioned were delegates to the Continental Congress from Connecticut. “I have received your letter of the 12th instant, before it came to hand I had been advis’d that Col. Cooke for want of health left Congress, & that Col. Wadsworth expected soon to return home. Mr. Edwards was accordingly preparing to set out for Congress & nothing hath prevented him for some time but the want of money: I have used my best Endeavours to furnish him with it, and hope you may find the benefit of his assistance before this reaches you. It is very unhappy that Congress should have so small a number of members, or rather not to be able to do business a great part of the time for want of members, an evil attended with very disagreeable consequences. I am fully of your sentiments respecting an adjournment in the summer season, could it be effected, it would give satisfaction to the states & add weight & influence to the proceedings of Congress. The appointment of Commissioners is a subject of Importance I had hoped that would have been accomplished while Connecticut had three Delegates attending. You will doubtless be Informed by the public papers of the mode & event of the proceedings in Rhode Island relative to the new Constitution; which appears very Irregular & altogether indecisive.”

The concerns of the proponents would become moot in two months, when New Hampshire became the ninth state to adopt the Constitution, making it the official law of the land. Within a year, only Rhode Island would still hold out against the Constitution; it became the last of the original 13 states to ratify the document, finally doing so in May 1790.