Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Critics of the Constitution claim that it lacked the unanimous consent required under the Articles of Confederation. Today on Home School Heartbeat, Mike Farris explains why this is a false argument.

Michael Farris:
For the United States Constitution to be legally adopted, two important steps had to take place before the conventions could vote to ratify the Constitution. First, Congress had to unanimously approve the changes, which they had done. And secondly, all 13 state legislatures had to approve the new process. It’s widely known that 11 state legislatures approved the process because their states held constitutional conventions and immediately approved the Constitution itself, but what about the other two states?

First is North Carolina. North Carolina approved the calling of a constitutional convention, which means the legislature approved this change of process. But that only gives us 12. What about Rhode Island? It is not widely known that the Rhode Island Legislature voted to call a very unusual ratification convention, and by doing this, they approved the change in process. The ratification convention consisted of all the people coming to their local town and voting yes or no on the Constitution. Even though the people voted the Constitution down, their legislature had previously approved the change in process. Thus we had what we needed: the Congress and all 13 states approving the process that was used to adopt the Constitution.

Therefore, the Constitution of the United States was legally adopted.

I’m Mike Farris.