Article VII
The Ratification of the Conventions of nine
States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between
the States so ratifying the Same.
Notes:
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The Philadelphia Convention met under the Government of the Articles of
Confederation, which in Article 16 required unanimous assent of all 13 states to change
any provisions of the Articles. Nevertheless, the new Constitution mandated that
the new government would go into effect when only nine of the 13 states
acted affirmatively. (This is not only less than unanimous, but less than
the three-fourths needed to amend the new Constitution.)
-
In other words, there was no authority to ratify the new Constitution until
after the nine states had ratified it. The U.S. Constitution authorized its
own self-enacting.
-
At
the time the issue eventually became extraneous because all 13 states
ratified the U.S. Constitution:
-
The Constitution was completed in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787.
-
The ninth state New Hampshire ratified it on June 21, 1788.
-
The government under the new Constitution began operations on March 4, 1789
-
The thirteenth state Rhode Island ratified the Constitution on May 29, 1790.
-
However, this issue created a precedent for a
self-enacting process. The
National Initiative for Democracy
employs it to justify their voting process
and explains it in Section 2 of the Parrish
Report.
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