Article VII of the U.S. Constitution

Article VII of the Constitution sets the criteria by which the newly created Constitution would be adopted.  Whenever nine states ratified it, the Constitution would come into effect for those states approving it.  The article called for ratifying conventions in the states, rather than allowing state legislatures to vote on it.

In addition, this article contains the signatures of those individuals who participated in the creation of the Constitution.  Below is a listing of the individuals who signed the document.  The Constitutional Convention completed its business on September 17, 1787.  New Hampshire was the ninth state to ratify the Constitution and did so on June 21, 1788.  The first Congress under the Constitution met in March of 1789.

Delaware                      Maryland                                 Virginia
George Read                  James McHenry                        George Washington*
Gunning Bedford, Jr.        Daniel Carroll                             John Blair
John Dickinson               Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer       James Madison, Jr.
Richard Bassett            
Jacob Broom


North Carolina              Georgia                                   New Hampshire
William Blount                William Few                              John Langdon
Richard Dobbs Spaight    Abraham Baldwin                       Nicholas Gilman
Hugh Williamson


Massachusetts              Connecticut                             New York
Nathaniel Gorham           William Samuel Johnson            Alexander Hamilton
Rufus King                      Roger Sherman

New Jersey                                  Pennsylvania
William Livingston                          Benjamin Franklin
David Brearly                                 Thomas Mifflin
William Patterson                           Robert Morris
Jonathan Dayton                            George Clymer
                                                     Thomas FitzSimons
                                                     Jared Ingersoll
                                                     James Wilson
                                                     Gouverneur Morris

* Served as President of the Convention