When did Rhode Island ratify the constitution?

AnswerBefore the Constitution was ratified as the official governmental document of America, there was a constitution called the Articles of Confederation. These governed America until the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The framers (founding fathers) decided the Articles had too many problems such as:

• They gave too much power to the states
• The national government had no army
• Foreign countries were taking advantage of America
• America had gone into a depression due to inflation and uneven balances of imports and exports.

Therefore, the Constitutional Convention was held in 1787 to amend the Articles of Confederation. What ended up happening, though, was total reconstruction. The small states of America presented the New Jersey Plan (written by William Paterson), which proposed a unicameral legislature and an equal amount of delegates for every state. The large states proposed the Virginia Plan (written primarily by Edmund Randolph and partially by James Madison), which proposed a bicameral legislature with the number of delegates depending on the state population. Neither side wanted to give in, so delegate Roger Sherman came up with The Great Compromise. In the Great Compromise, there was to be a bicameral legislature. The bottom house would depend on population, while the upper house had equal delegates for each state. We know the bottom house as The House of Representatives and the upper house as the Senate. The two most probable reasons Rhode Island didn't sign the Constitution are:

1. Rhode Island being the smallest state, it didn't want to compromise.
2. Rhode Island liked the Articles of Confederation because it gave a lot of power to individual state governments.

In fact, Rhode Island didn't even have a delegate representing it at the Constitutional Convention in the first place.