Ratification Debates
Resulting from nationalists’ claim that the Articles of Confederation was too weak, a more powerful central government was proposed. In Philadelphia during the summer of 1787, Constitutional Convention delegates drafted the U.S. Constitution and submitted the document to the states for ratification. In North Carolina, the document was neither approved or rejected at the state’s first convention, the Hillsborough Convention of 1788. The following year, delegates met at the Fayetteville Convention and ratified the Constitution. North Carolina had joined the Union.