Rough Draft

Rhode Island's Debate over Ratification of the Constitution

The state of Rhode Island was mainly populated by antifederalists at the time of the ratification of the constitution in 1787. A signifigant reason they were opposed the ratification was their belief that a central government would deny much of the rights and power of individual states. Reasons behind this strong dissaproval were partially because of the Charter of Rhode Island which was the manual with rules and orders for the use of the general assembly of the state of Rhode Island. The state had an issue with the fact that the central government would overpower the individual states. But the majority of Rhode Island believed this would not be good for them, and that a small, statewide system of government would be more effecient. There was also a great deal of concern about the land ordinance of 1785, where each states boundaries extended well beyond the boundaries originly assigned to the state. It stated that the land of the old northwest should be sold in order to pay of the national debt. This land of course, included Rhode Island, and it was a worry to Rhode Island because they did not have claims on any western land, while other states did. Finally, there was an issue with taxation. Rhode Island did not want to ratify the constitution until their state debts had been payed off. If they were to ratify with debts still upon them, they would then accumulate more debt from the new government.

How can Rhode Island accept the Constitution when they did not attend the Philadelphia Convention (Moehn 94)? "The Federalis Papers" written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay states that "Rhode Island's legislature, controlled by a radical agrarian part, sent no delegation" to Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles of Confederation (30). The reason in refusing to their 'urgent need for power-sharing between States and Federal authorities" in the Convention was that Rhode Island are concerned about giving the federal government too much power. Rhode Island are content with the liberty and the independence based on their stated constitution. They had no intention of giving the state's independence up to a federal government. The state constitution, or the Charter of 1664, was fought for during the Revolutionary War. Giving too much power to the executive would be going back to British shoes. America as a whole would be run under a "king".

Since Rhode Island was the last and final state to ratify the Constitution, it must have been severely anti-federalist. One of the primary reasons why the majority of Rhode Island chose not to be governed by a general government was because of the issue of taxation. Unlike the federalists, who were okay with the idea of a broader government taxing at their will, the anti-federalists in Rhode Island feared that there would also be horrible side effects of a more powerful government. The officials feared that since the citizens would have to pay taxes to both the state and the federal government, they would become too burdened with all of the costs. If a citizen became too burdened by taxes, they could simply refuse to pay any taxes. The anti-federalists believed that in this situation, the federal government would simply alleviate the state taxes and only collect their own taxes from citizens. Located in a primary document by Brutus, a writer of one of the numerous anti-federalists letters, he offers his view very plainly,
“Suppose then that both governments should lay taxes, duties, and excises, and it should fall so heavy on the people that they would be unable, or be so burdensome that they would refuse to pay them both — would it not be necessary that the general legislature should suspend the collection of the state tax? It certainly would. For, if the people could not, or would not pay both, they must be discharged from the tax to the state, or the tax to the general government could not be collected. — The conclusion therefore is inevitable, that the respective state governments will not have the power to raise one shilling in any way, but by the permission of the Congress.”
The federalists in Rhode Island must have seen this sort of thinking as a crazy tangent. They thought that this sort of undermining would never happen, but despite their beliefs, the issue of taxation remained one of the most important and pressing topics to the anti-federalists in Rhode Island.

For numerous reasons, Rhode Island was opposed to the ratification up until May 29, 1790. They really had no choice, they were threatened to be treated as a foreign government. If they refused to ratify, there would be nothing for them.