The final article of the US Constitution, Article VII, explains that ratification of the historic document required the support of just nine states. On December 7, 1787, Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution - then came Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina.
The article states:
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.
Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independance of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,
George Washington, President and deputy from Virginia
New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman
Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorman, Rufus King
Connecticut: William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman
New York: Alexander Hamilton
New Jersey: William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton
Pennsylvania: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris
Delaware: George Read, Gunning Bedford Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom
Maryland: James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll
Virginia: John Blair, James Madison Jr.
North Carolina: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson
South Carolina: John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler
Georgia: William Few
Attest: Abraham Baldwin
William Jackson, Secretary
The Constitution officially took effect when New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify it on June 21, 1788. With that decisive vote, the nation’s blueprint, written in Philadelphia, became the supreme law of the new American government - and remains so to this day.
