After the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia completed their work on the new United States Constitution, it was presented to each of the states for ratification (approval). Delaware’s legislature directed that ten delegates from each county be selected at a special election held on November 26, 1787, and that these delegates meet the following week in a ratification convention. Because the State House was not yet constructed, the convention’s sessions were held in Battell’s Tavern, located on the north side of the Dover Green. The thirty delegates quickly and unanimously approved the new constitution. The convention clerk engrossed their approval on a large piece of parchment, now called the Ratification Document, and the delegates signed it on Friday, December 7, 1787. The clerk made a duplicate copy, complete with the delegates’ signatures, and sent it to the national government. Delaware’s action on December 7th made it the First State to officially approve the new United States Constitution.

Transcription:

We the Deputies of the People of Delaware State in convention met having taken into our serious consideration the Federal Constitution proposed and agreed upon by the Deputies of the United States in a General Convention held at the City of Philadelphia on the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, Have approved, assented to, ratified, and confirmed and by these Presents, Do, in virtue of the Power and Authority to us given for the purpose for and in behalf of ourselves and our Constituents, fully, freely, and entirely approve of, assent to, ratify, and confirm the said Constitution.

Done in Convention at Dover this seventh day of December in the year aforesaid and in the year of the Independence of the United States of America the twelfth. In Testimony whereof we have hereunto subscribed our Names

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Please note: This page presents three versions of the document: the original scan, an enhanced color version, and an enhanced greyscale version. The latter two have been processed to improve the legibility of the handwritten text.