Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
Delaware’s ratifying convention approved the Constitution on December 7, 1787, with a unanimous vote of 30–0. Its position at the front of the ratification sequence earned Delaware the nickname “The First State.”
Article Seven required ratification by conventions in nine states before the Constitution could take effect. New Hampshire became the ninth state on June 21, 1788, but the remaining states still had to decide whether to join the new constitutional system.
Delaware’s first-place status concerns ratification, not the signing of the Constitution or the order in which the states entered the Union. The state was also one of the original Thirteen Colonies and had been represented in the revolutionary era that America250 commemorates.