For America250’s constitutional ratification story, Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
Delaware approved the Constitution on December 7, 1787, becoming the first of the thirteen states to do so. Its ratifying convention voted unanimously, 30–0, which earned Delaware the nickname “The First State.”
Pennsylvania followed on December 12, 1787, and New Jersey ratified six days later. The sequence mattered because Article VII required nine state ratifications for the Constitution to take effect.
New Hampshire supplied the decisive ninth ratification on June 21, 1788. Delaware’s early unanimous vote did not by itself activate the new government, but it established the opening step in the formal ratification process.