Ah, the month of June; it is named after the Roman Goddess Juno. She was in charge of marriages back then. I am not sure who is now. They seem to be quite different. However, June is still the month of marriages. June also has at least one other distinction, besides birthdays of those of you who have June ones.
It was on June 21, 1788 that our constitution had the ninth of the thirteen states ratify it. This made it official. Rhode Island was the last to actually adopt it . They finally got around to it on May 29, 1790. Isn’t it ironic that the smallest state took the longest time to ratify the constitution. It was signed and sent out September 1787. They only had snail mail in those days.
One of the hang ups was the cry for what is now known as the Bill of Rights. There is another instance of the slowness of government action in that story also. Immediately after ratification they got to work and proposed twelve amendments. Proposals 2 thru 12 were passed within a couple of years. The first proposal has fallen by the wayside. The 2nd proposal took a while longer. It was finally adopted as the 27th amendment in May of 1992. I am not sure but I think that is the slowest the government has taken to do anything positive.
That amendment, simply put, doesn’t let congress vote themselves a pay raise. Any raise they vote for has to wait till after the next election. It isn’t a real surprise that they took over a couple of hundred years to make that one the law. And we can thank a UT student for getting it done.
All of this talk about the early days of the USA reminds us that the 4th of July is the day we celebrate as the birth of our nation. That in itself is a compromise on what is a long string of dates. It is true that the continental congress passed the final version we know as the Declaration of Independence on the 4th 1776.
The revolutionary war started April 19, 1775. The first battle was in Lexington and Concord up in Massachusetts. We know about that when Longfellow let us Hear about the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere where he gave Paul all the credit, probably because his name rhymed with Hear. Paul was involved, for sure, but so were many others.
At any rate, the Declaration was signed on August 2 about a month after it was adopted. The war went on until April 11, 1783, almost 8 years when we signed the treaty of Paris with England. During that time we were working under the Articles of Confederation. Finally after the constitution was adopted we inaugurated our President George Washington in 1789. So I guess I will stick to the 4th of July as the best date to celebrate. My recommendation is that you should also.
