News that New Hampshire had adjourned its ratification convention and agreed to reconvene in June reverberated throughout America. John Langdon and his pro-Constitution allies had made significant progress convincing many of the “Antis” to reconsider their position. However, nearly forty towns had instructed their delegates to vote against ratification. The purpose of the adjournment – postponing a vote until a second convention in June – was to permit delegates to return home and persuade their constituents to change their instructions.
While Federalists were encouraged that New Hampshire would ratify in June, Antis seized the opportunity to promote the notion that it had rejected the Constitution. Moreover, moving the meeting place to Concord seemed to benefit the Antis. Opposition to the Constitution tended to be in the western parts of several states, including New Hampshire. Concord was 100 miles inland and its delegates opposed ratification. Nicholas Gilman was among those who expressed this concern. Representing New Hampshire in the Confederation Congress meeting in New York, Gilman wrote to Gov. John Sullivan, expressing his misgivings that “the field assigned for the scene of action is so much in favor of the adverse party.”
Gilman, along with John Langdon, had represented New Hampshire at the Constitutional Convention. Although he had spoken infrequently, he was an ardent supporter of the Constitution. Now, in his vantage point as a member of the current government, he shared his concerns with Sullivan. Referring to the ratifying convention’s adjournment, he wrote that “one can hardly imagine what pernicious effects our convention business has produced in a number of States…the governor of this State [New York’s Gov. George Clinton] acts no longer covert but is open and indefatigable in the opposition. The Antis are forming associations – holding County Conventions, etc., much as in the stile of the Massachusetts rebellion – by all late accounts from Virginia the opposition there is increasing and there is reason to apprehend that North Carolina is too highly tinctured with the same spirit…Adoption is certainly doubtful in New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island.”
While New Hampshire waited for its second ratifying convention to convene on June 18, other States were holding their own. Maryland was scheduled to meet on April 21; South Carolina on May 12; Virginia on June 2; New York on June 17; and North Carolina on July 21. If nothing else, New Hampshire’s adjournment slowed momentum in favor of ratification, but the greatest threat was how it might influence election of delegates to other State conventions.
Concord had been selected as the site for New Hampshire’s second ratifying convention simply because the State legislature was scheduled to meet there on June 4 and adjourn the same day the convention was to begin its proceedings – June 18. Many convention delegates also served in the legislature; meeting in Concord was a matter of convenience and reduction of expenses.
New Hampshire tradition held that each session of the legislature should open with an “election sermon,” to be delivered by a clergyman chosen by the legislature. Rev. Samuel Langdon, pastor of the Congregational Church in Hampton Falls, had been asked to prepare such a sermon for June 5. Langdon was also a delegate to the ratifying convention and used the opportunity to extol constitutional government with a lengthy discourse on The Republic of the Israelites an Example to the American States. Reaching into antiquity and the Old Testament, Langdon described the government delivered by God to Moses as one “settled on republican principles” and expounded on how those principles were reflected in the legislative, executive, and judicial structures and processes of ancient Israel. Ultimately, however, Langdon observed, the Israelites “never adhered in practice, either to the principles of their civil polity or religion.” Citing the book of Judges, he continued, “In those days, there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”
Langdon’s purpose for presenting “this long detail on antiquated history” was clear. “Examples are better than precepts,” he said, “and history is the best instructor both in polity and morals.” He presented them with the “portrait of a nation, highly favored by heaven with civil and religious institutions, who yet, by not improving their advantages, forfeited their blessings…If I am not mistaken, instead of the twelve tribes of Israel, we may substitute the thirteen states of the American union.” After elaborating on the blessings bestowed on America, Langdon inserted a plea for the Constitution, “already drawn up, and presented to the people, by a convention of the wisest and most celebrated patriots in the land; eight of the states have approved and accepted it.” Nevertheless, he warned, “the best constitution, badly managed, will soon fall and be changed into anarchy or tyranny.”
For America to benefit from “this remarkable gift from heaven,” Langdon advised, the people must choose good men, participate in public meetings and vote, not “just as any party may persuade…but with serious deliberation and judgment.” The people will choose “wise men or fools, good or bad men” and determine whether there will be a faithful administration of government. “Political life and death are set before you,” he continued. “If you pursue it, your prosperity is sure; but if not, distress and ruin will overtake you.”
On June 2, John Langdon had been elected president of New Hampshire, defeating incumbent John Sullivan who had also been elected president of the convention. On June 18, the second ratifying convention convened in Concord. Two days later, the convention approved a committee of fifteen leading advocates on both sides, including John Langdon, John Sullivan, and Joshua Atherton, to consider possible amendments to the Constitution. Within hours the committee reported twelve proposed amendments, similar to those approved in Massachusetts. Surprisingly, Atherton moved to ratify, but with the proviso that “said Constitution do not operate in the state of New Hampshire without said amendments.” After some debate, Samuel Livermore proposed that the Constitution be ratified unconditionally and that the amendments simply be recommended to Congress.
The next morning, June 21, Atherton made one more attempt to derail ratification by proposing another adjournment. His motion failed and the convention immediately approved Livermore’s motion to ratify by a vote of 57- 47. In the meantime, Maryland and South Carolina became the seventh and eighth States to ratify. New Hampshire’s earlier adjournment had inadvertently resulted in its being the ninth – the final State required to inaugurate the new government under the Constitution of the United States, ratified by “We the people.”