What Would Publius Do?

[Geee]

American Spectator:

In a time when a supposedly elusive bipartisan consensus is actually alive and well in the service of statism and federalism is considered a quaint rhetorical device rather than a bulwark against tyranny, is it reasonable to believe long-discarded founding principles of our fledging former selves might offer some measure of salvation?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. But two politics professors at The King’s College in New York City are doing their damnedest to nudge us toward answering in the affirmative via a edifying, challenging series of essays — e.g., “What’s a ‘Trigger Word’ Citizen To Do?”; “Reflection and Choice Or Accident and Force” — and a well-curated Twitter feed.

[Valin]

@Geee

 

 

 

FYI June 21, 1788: U.S. Constitution ratified

 

New Hampshire becomes the ninth and last necessary state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, thereby making the document the law of the land.

 

By 1786, defects in the post-Revolutionary War Articles of Confederation were apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce. Congress endorsed a plan to draft a new constitution, and on May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention convened at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. On September 17, 1787, after three months of debate moderated by convention president George Washington, the new U.S. constitution, which created a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states.

 

Beginning on December 7, 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 undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional 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.

 

(Snip)

 

UNE's Center for Global Humanities and its founding director, Anouar Majid, host Pauline Maier to discuss her book, *Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788,* the first narrative history of the process by which the Constitution's fate was decided, state by state, in specially elected conventions.

 

 

Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788