Constitutional Ratification Quotes

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such;… I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better Constitution….It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best.

Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution.

The present Congress have as complete authority to require of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future Congress will have to require them of individual citizens; and the latter will be no more bound than the States themselves have been, to pay the quotas respectively taxed on them.

The Federal government we have today is unimaginable in the perspective of the Americans who debated the ratification of the original constitution.

Every one of the state legislatures that sent delegates to Philadelphia was grossly malapportioned by any ‘one man, one vote’ standard, and the state conventions that ratified the Constitution were in every instance set up on the same rule of apportionment.

Next Monday the Convention in Virginia will assemble; we have still good hopes of its adoption here: though by no great plurality of votes. South Carolina has probably decided favourably before this time. The plot thickens fast. A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come.

Patrick Henry has an avaricious heart. Devoutly pray for his death.

These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk so finely and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves. They expect to be the managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and all the money into their own hands. And then they will swallow up all of us little folks, like the great Leviathan, Mr. President; yes, just as the whale swallowed up Jonah. This is what I am afraid of....

I, sir, have always conceived - I believe those who proposed the constitution conceived,and it is still more fully known, and more material to observe, those who ratified the constitution conceived, that this is not an indefinite government deriving its powers from the general terms prefixed to the specified powers - but, a limited government tied down to the specified powers, which explain and define the general terms.

Have you Gentlemen had ever reflected on that awful period of time between the passing and final adoption of this constitution—what alarm might possibly take place in the public mind.

You well know, sir, that when the Constitution was submitted to the People of the respective States for their adoption or rejection, it awakened the warmest debates of the several State conventions.

Alexander Hamilton, of New York, a signer of the Constitution, was a member of the ratifying convention in his state and did more than any other member to wring the approval of the new instrument from delegates practically instructed by their constituents to vote against it.

They tell us Congress won't lay dry [direct] taxes upon us, but collect all the money they want by impost [import duties]. I say, there has always been a difficulty about impost.... They won't be able to raise money enough by impost, and then they will lay it on the land and take all we have got.

The ratification of the Constitution was a slugfest.

How a constitution is written can sometimes matter almost as much as what it contains.

The new Constitution should be ratified in the most unexceptional form, and by the supreme authority of the people themselves.

Any amendments which might be thought necessary would be easily obtained after ratification in the manner proscribed by the Constitution.

It is my sincere opinion that the Constitution ought to be revised, and that the first Congress meeting under it, ought to prepare and recommend to the States for ratification, the most satisfactory provisions for all essential rights …

We contended with Great Britain--some said for a three-penny duty on tea; but it was not that. It was because they claimed a right to tax us and bind us in all cases whatever. And does not this Constitution do the same? Does it not take away all we have--all our property? Does it not lay all taxes, duties, imposts, and excises? And what more have we to give?

It cannot be denied with truth, that this new constitution is, in its first principles, most highly and dangerously, oligarchic.

It is to be the assent and ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore establishing the Constitution, will not be a NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act.

As we have been a long time poring upon the defective parts of the Constitution, I think it would not be amiss to pay some attention to its excellences.

Should the States reject this excellent Constitution, the probability is, an opportunity will never again offer to cancel another in peacethe next will be drawn in blood.

[The Massachusetts constitution] resembles the federal Constitution of 1787 more closely than any of the other revolutionary state constitutions. It was also drawn up by a special convention, and it provided for popular ratification - practices that were followed by the drafters of the federal Constitution of 1787 and subsequent state constitution-makers.