The New Hampshire Constitutional Ratification Convention ratifies the Constitution for the united States (YEA, 57; NAY, 47)—with nine provisions, numbers one, four and five of which state:
- That those powers not “expressly” delegated to Congress be reserved by the States;
- That Direct taxation should be tapped only as a last resort; that Indirect taxation revenues should be exhausted first;
- That Congress lend no special favors or advantages to select businesses at the disadvantage of others.
New Hampshire is the ninth State to secede from the Confederation. The Constitution–a constitution of liberty–is now in force among the nine States that have ratified it, thus creating the federal united States. This establishes a balance, in the Senate, of free States and slave States to four free and five slave.
[updated 12/14/2024]
Melancton Smith, a former Delegate to the First Provincial Congress of New York, at the Constitutional Ratifying Convention, argues against ratification of the proposed Constitution for the united States, warning that corruption will increase as the ratio of Representatives to constituents increases:
[F]or each member’s share of power will decrease as the number of the House of Representatives increases. If, therefore, this maxim be true, that men are unwilling to relinquish powers which they once possess, we are not to expect the House of Representatives will be inclined to enlarge the numbers. … In so small a number of representatives, there is great danger from corruption and combination. A great politician has said that every man has his price.
[restored 3/12/2021]
Subsequent Events:
Authority:
Articles of Confederation, Article XIII
ccc-2point0.com/articles-of-confederation
References:
Murray Dry, The Anti-Federalist: An abridgement, from The Complete Anti-Federalist by Herbert J. Storing, ed., (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 339 342.
“Chronology of Events, 1774-1804,” from The Debate on the Constitution, two volumes, Bernard Bailyn, ed., (New York: Library of America, 1993), 2:1067.
Avalon Project – Ratification of the Constitution by the State of New Hampshire; June 21, 1788
avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ratnh.asp
The Disenfranchisement of America and the Plan to Reverse It | Last Minute Survival
www.lastminutesurvival.com/2013/12/11/the-disenfranchisement-of-america-and-the-plan-to-reverse-it/
thirty-thousand.org — The New York Debates (Summary)
www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/NY_debates1.htm
Current U.s. National Debt:
