With all the efforts by our current and recent government leaders to reduce our rights and take away privacy, this might not be nearly as important as it used to be, but we can still celebrate when our leaders signed the Constitution. Back then, the Constitution and the follow-on Bill of Rights served as a sign that our leaders were trying to improve the country, protect the people, and assure the citizens that the government was to serve the people, not intrude upon their lives and remove liberties.
The Constitution of the United States of America is signed by 38 of 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Supporters of the document waged a hard-won battle to win ratification by the necessary nine out of 13 U.S. states.
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On May 25, 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island convened at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The building, which is now known as Independence Hall, had earlier seen the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation. The assembly immediately discarded the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation and set about drawing up a new scheme of government. Revolutionary War hero George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected convention president.
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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. Today, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.
King George was a threat to all these ideas then, just as King George is a threat to these ideas now. Not that my conservative friends agree, but I just don’t like all the recent laws that have reduced our rights and privacy in the name of fighting terrorism.
[tags]Today in History, The US Constitution is signed, The threat of King George[/tags]
