New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution in 1788, completing the threshold needed for the document to take effect.
New Hampshire approved the Constitution on June 21, 1788. Article VII specified that ratification by conventions in nine states would be sufficient to establish the Constitution among the states that approved it.
The first eight ratifying states included Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina. New Hampshire’s vote supplied the ninth approval, although Virginia and New York had not yet ratified.
The Constitution did not immediately create a functioning federal government. Congress began operating under it on March 4, 1789, and George Washington was inaugurated as the first president on April 30 of that year. Rhode Island became the final original state to ratify, in 1790.