The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser | A remarkable document showcasing Rhode Island's path to ratification.

The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser

The Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser. Saturday, October 24, 1789. Philadelphia: John Dunlap, 1789

Folio (465 x 288 mm). 4 pages on 1 sheet, type in 4 columns, printer's ornaments; lightly browned at edges, small marginal chips and short closed tears.

Rhode Island fears "in the new constitution an approach ... towards that form of government from which we have lately dissolved our connection"

The second page prints "a true copy of the letter written by the General Assembly, at the session held in September, A.D. 1789, to the President, Senate and House of Representatives of the Eleven United States of America in Congress," which describes Rhode Island's ambivalence to ratify the Constitution of the United States:

"The critical situation in which the people of this state are placed, engages us to make these assurances on their behalf, of their attachment and friendship to their sister states, and of their disposition to cultivate mutual harmony and friendly intercourse—They know themselves to be a handful comparatively viewed; and although they now stand as it were alone, they have not separated themselves, or departed from the principles of the confederation, which was formed by the sister states in their struggle for freedom, and in the hour of danger.

They seek by this memorial to call your remembrance the hazards which we have run—the hardships we have endured—the treasure we have spent—and the blood we have lost together in one common cause, and especially the object we had in view—the preservation of our liberty ... Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of government, formed and adopted by most of our sister states, we doubt not has given uneasiness to them—that we have not seen our way clear to do it, consistent with our idea of the principles upon which we all embarked together, has also given pain to us—we have not doubted but we might thereby avoid present difficulties, but we have apprehended future mischiefs.

The people of this state from its first settlement have been accustomed and strongly attached to a democratical form of government:—They have viewed in the new constitution an approach, though perhaps but small, towards that form of government from which we have lately dissolved our connection at so much hazard and expence [sic] of life and treasure. ... "