Recommendations from our site
“The story of how the Constitution was ratified is just as remarkable as the story of how it was framed. By the end of 10 months of public debate, each of the 11 states that originally ratified the Constitution had independently adopted it. States could recommend amendments, but the only binding action they could take was to vote the entire Constitution up or down. Comparing that process to what Europeans have been going through over the last decade with the EU constitutional treaty makes you think the framers were geniuses. They came up with a remarkably efficient way to get the Constitution adopted. It required a lot of debate and a lot of political manoeuvring but it was ratified in less than a year. Until Pauline Maier published this book, that story has never been well told.” Read more...
The best books on The US Constitution
Jack Rakove, Historian
Ratification takes the story from the framing of the Constitution to its—yes—ratification. The process was complicated and far from a done deal from the outset. There was lots of politics involved. Hamilton’s party, the Federalists, won the day over the anti-Federalists, helped by the support of Washington himself, to whom Hamilton was close and with whom he and worked and faught during the War of Independence. Remarkably, the whole process was complete within a year, with all of the original states ratifying it. This book takes you through the main debates of the process one-by-one.
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