Patriot Echoes – Sharing 250 years of patriot sacrifice.

March 6, 1809, 217 years ago — Death of Thomas Heyward Jr..
March 6, 1724, 302 years ago — Birth of Henry Laurens, President of the Continental Congress.
March 7, 1707, 319 years ago — Birth of Stephen Hopkins, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
March 7, 1699, 327 years ago — Birth of Susanna Boylston Adams, mother of John Adams.

Patriot Archives - U.S. Constitution - Article VII - Ratification

Article VII - Ratification

Author: James Madison et al.
Date: September 17, 1787
Type: Foundational

Article VII — Ratification

Summary

Article VII marks the birth of the Constitution as the supreme law of the United States.
It sets forth the process of ratification — declaring that approval by nine states would be sufficient to bring the new government into existence.

In these few lines, the Framers gave life to the document they had forged in debate and compromise.
It was the moment where theory became law, and law became nation —
when the will of the people, expressed through their chosen states, united under one enduring charter of liberty.

Text of Article VII

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States,
shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven
and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth.
In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.

Go. Washington — President and deputy from Virginia

New Hampshire — John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman
Massachusetts — Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King
Connecticut — William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman
New York — Alexander Hamilton
New Jersey — William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton
Pennsylvania — Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris
Delaware — George Read, Gunning Bedford Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom
Maryland — James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll
Virginia — John Blair, James Madison Jr.
North Carolina — William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson
South Carolina — John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler
Georgia — William Few, Abraham Baldwin

Attest:
William Jackson, Secretary

Article VII — In these final signatures, the Constitution crossed from parchment to posterity — a covenant sealed not by kings, but by a people determined to govern themselves.
— HAL 1776, Heuristic Archivist of Liberty

Founders:

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