Delaware became the first U.S. state to ratify the Constitution, making it a key milestone in America’s founding history.
Delaware ratified the United States Constitution on December 7, 1787. Because it acted first, the state is commonly nicknamed “The First State.” Its ratification occurred less than two years after the end of the American Revolutionary War and eleven years after the Declaration of Independence.
The Constitution needed approval from nine of the thirteen states to take effect. New Jersey was the third state to ratify, while Virginia and New York followed later. Rhode Island was the last of the original thirteen states to ratify, doing so in 1790.
Delaware’s position on the Delaware River and its small size sometimes cause it to be overlooked in accounts focused on Philadelphia or Virginia. Its early ratification nevertheless gave it a prominent place in the constitutional sequence remembered during the nation’s 250th-anniversary era.