there remained three final questions. How shall the
Constitution be ratified? What number of states shall be necessary to
put it into effect? How shall it be amended in the future?

On the first point, the mandate under which the convention was sitting
seemed positive. The Articles of Confederation were still in effect.
They provided that amendments could be made only by unanimous adoption
in Congress and the approval of all the states. As if to give force to
this provision of law, the call for the convention had expressly stated
that all alterations and revisions should be reported to Congress for
adoption or rejection, Congress itself to transmit the document
thereafter to the states for their review.

To have observed the strict letter of the law would have defeated the
purposes of the delegates, because Congress and the state legislatures
were openly hostile to such drastic changes as had been made. Unanimous
ratification, as events proved, would have been impossible. Therefore
the delegates decided that the Constitution should be sent to Congress
with the recommendation that it, in turn, transmit the document, not to
the state legislatures, but to conventions held in the states for the
special object of deciding upon ratification. This process was followed.
It was their belief that special conventions would be more friendly than
the state legislatures.

The convention was equally positive in dealing with the problem of the
number of states necessary to establish the new Constitution. Attempts
to change the Articles had failed because amendment required the
approval of every state and there was always at least one recalcitrant
member of the union. The opposition to a new Constitution was
undoubtedly formidable. Rhode Island had even refused to take part in
framing it, and her hostility was deep and open. So the convention cast
aside the provision of the Articles of Confederation which required
unanimous approval for any change in the plan of government; it decreed
that the new Constitution should go into effect when ratified by nine
states.

In providing for future changes in the Constitution itself the
convention also thrust aside the old rule of unanimous approval, and
decided that an amendment could be made on a two-thirds vote in both
houses of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of the states. This
change was of profound significance. Every state agreed to be bound in
the future by amendments duly a