On this day, 17 September in 1787, the U.S. Constitution was signed.
As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states.
Beginning on 7 December, five states – Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia and Connecticut – ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve un-delegated powers to the states and lacked protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press.
In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina.
On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New York in July.
On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution – the Bill of Rights – and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States.
Now, 234 years later, Republican attorneys general from 24 states, including Florida, Texas – and the state with most Covid deaths – Mississippi, threatened to “seek every available legal option” from that document to insure their constituents will either get very, very sick and ‘survive’ or get very, very sick and die from Covid-19.
In an open letter to the President of the United States of America, the Republican attorneys general called the new vaccine requirements for millions of federal employees, contractors and nearly two-thirds of the private sector workforce, “disastrous and counterproductive”, adding that such a move would be a “threat to individual liberty” and could overburden companies.
Coincidentally, on this day in 2010, the soap opera As The World Turns ended its final broadcast after 54 years.
Sourced: History.com and The Washington Post
