New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
New Hampshire approved the Constitution on June 21, 1788, with a convention vote of 57–47. Because Article Seven required ratification by nine states, this decision put the Constitution into effect for the states that had ratified it.
The Constitution had been signed in Philadelphia on September 17, 1787, but signing by convention delegates did not itself establish the new government. Ratification conventions in the states had to approve the proposed document. New Hampshire’s action crossed the required nine-state threshold.
The remaining four original states did not ratify immediately. Virginia and New York joined later in 1788, while North Carolina ratified in 1789 and Rhode Island in 1790. This timeline shows how the constitutional system followed the independence declared in 1776 rather than appearing all at once.