The Resolution from Constitutional Convention Concerning Ratification of the Proposed Constitution, sometimes called the “fifth page” of the Constitution, spell out how the new Constitution would be adopted by the United States and how the new government would be put into effect.
Instead of seeking the consent of Congress and the 13 state legislatures, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention proposed that the Constitution “be laid before the United States in Congress assembled” and then submitted to special ratifying conventions elected by the people in each of the states. Once nine states had ratified it, this new instrument of government would go into effect in those nine states.
This process was carefully devised to ensure that the authority of the new government came from the people. Without the resolution, the Constitution, in the words of James Madison, “was nothing more than the draft of a plan, nothing but a dead letter, until life and validity were breathed into it by the voice of the people.”
