Apr 15, 2021 - Sale 2564

Sale 2564 - Lot 201

Price Realized: $ 938
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(CONSTITUTION.) Order for voting on delegates to Connecticut's convention for ratifying the Constitution. Document Signed by Bezaleel Fisk and two other selectmen of Middletown, issued to Constable Jozeb Stocking. One page, 8 x 7 1/2 inches, with docketing and receipt on verso; folds, minor wear. Middletown, CT, 2 November 1787

Additional Details

Offered here is one of thousands of small steps on the path toward the ratification of the United States Constitution--one which demonstrates the influence which a common citizen had on the process. On 19 October 1787, the Connecticut Assembly ordered a town-by-town vote for delegates to a state constitutional convention. The present notice was issued two weeks later in Middletown, CT. The town selectmen ordered the constable to summon all qualified inhabitants to "meet at the town house in said Middletown on the second Monday of November instant at one o'clock in the afternoon for the purpose of choosing delegates agreeable to act of Assembly in Oct. last, and to do any other business necessary." The delegate vote was held as ordered on 12 November, setting up a final vote on 9 January 1788. Their result was not much in doubt, as the two-house Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) had been calibrated specifically to satisfy Connecticut and other smaller states. Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the Constitution, by a vote of 128 to 40.