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New York: a state of waterways, enterprise and arguments about freedom New York became the eleventh state to ratify the United States Constitution on July 26, 1788. That anniversary belongs to a story much larger than Manhattan: Indigenous nations, Hudson River settlements, farms, canal towns, mountain communities and industrial cities all helped shape the Empire State. Its history connects the defense of independence with the daily work of building a society capable of sustaining it. The state …

Virginia: the Old Dominion and the promise of liberty Virginia ratified the United States Constitution on June 25, 1788, becoming the tenth state in the federal order of ratification. Its history was already long, and its influence on the new republic was substantial. Virginians helped write founding documents, lead the Continental Army and debate how a free people should distribute public power. The Commonwealth’s flag expresses that political inheritance through a dramatic classical scen …

New Hampshire: the ninth ratification, a wider American story New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the United States Constitution on June 21, 1788. The number was decisive: Article VII required nine ratifying states for the Constitution to be established among them. The new federal government still needed elections and organization before it began operating in 1789. New Hampshire’s anniversary therefore marks a constitutional threshold, not an overnight replacement of every publi …

New Jersey: liberty, prosperity and the third state New Jersey became the third state to ratify the United States Constitution on December 18, 1787. That date gives the Garden State its place in the familiar state-birthday calendar. Yet the year shown on its flag is 1776, not 1787. The difference is not a mistake: one date marks revolutionary statehood, while the other marks ratification of the federal Constitution. This is a useful starting point for a history that often gets squeezed between t …

Pennsylvania: the Keystone State and the making of a nation Pennsylvania celebrates its place in the Union on December 12. On that date in 1787, it became the second state to ratify the United States Constitution. Philadelphia had hosted the convention that produced the document; now Pennsylvania accepted the new framework of national government. That makes its birthday a constitutional milestone rather than the creation of a territory from previously ungoverned land. The commonwealth’s hi …