Rhode Island Finally Ratifies the Constitution While Proposing a Different Bill of Rights and Further Amendments to Change the Constitution Itself

Broadside. The Bill of Rights, and Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as Agreed to by the Convention of the State of Rhode-Island and Providence-Plantations, at South-Kingstown, in the County of Washington, on the First Monday of March, A.D. 1790. [Providence, RI]: [March 1790]. Signed in print by Convention Secretary Daniel Updike; this copy was sent to the Town Clerk of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. 1 p., 13 3/4 x 17 1/2 in. "the powers of government may be reassumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness"Rhode Island was the only state that did not send delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and still held out after the new federal government started to operate. With in the other states becoming more frustrated, Congress threatened a ban on trade, and Providence, Newport, and Bristol threatened to secede from the state in order to join the nation.This broadside, printed in March of 1790, records the eighteen articles of a proposed Bill of Rights and eighteen proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution. After ten prior attempts at ratification met with overwhelming opposition, every town in the state met again on April 21 to discuss the proposals and instruct their delegates to a state convention. On May 29, 1790, the state's eleventh convention finally ratified the U.S. Constitution by a vote of 34 to 32, becoming the last of the original 13 states to join the federal government. Two months later, it beat four other states to ratifying the Bill of Rights. Historical BackgroundJames Madison had argued at the Constitutional Convention and in The Federalist no. 46 that a bill of rights was unnecessary, as state governments were sufficient guarantors of personal liberty. Despite the opposition of Patrick Henry and many others, Virginia's convention ratified the Constitution on June 25, 1788, contingent on a bill of rights being added. Patrick Henry and other Anti-Federalists who controlled the Virginia House of Delegates created a hostile electoral district for Madison, recruiting James Monroe to run against him. Madison changed his position, pledging if elected to introduce a bill of rights early in the First Federal Congress. Madison did so in the House in May, and over the next several months marshalled it through the House and conferences with the Senate by the end of the first session of the first Federal Congress in 1789. Ten of the twelve were ratified, becoming the Bill of Rights.The U.S. Congress had set January 15, 1790 as the date when economic sanctions would begin if Rhode Island had not called a ratifying convention. On January 11, the state's lower house voted 34 to 29 to pass a convention bill, but the upper house rejected it the next day. In an extraordinary session on Sunday, January 17, the House of Deputies passed a convention bill again. With one of the opposing members in the House of Magistrates absent, a 4 to 4 tie allowed Governor John Collins to cast the deciding vote in favor of a convention.On March 1, seventy delegates convened for the convention in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. A committee drafted and reported this "Bill of Rights and Amendments to the Constitution of the United States."Eleven of the eighteen statements of rights printed here were taken verbatim from, and six more drew heavily on, the twenty statements proposed by the Virginia Ratifying Convention on June 27, 1788. Only the third of Rhode Island's statements of rights varies substantially from Virginia's. Three of the eighteen proposed amendments printed here are also taken verbatim from or closely follow amendments proposed by the Virginia Convention.One of Rhode Island's amendments was certainly a non-starter in Virginia: the seventeenth on this broadside, called on Congress to "prevent the importation of slaves of every description into the United States" as soon as possible.Leaders of Rhode Island's anti-federalist Country party f. (See website for full description).…