Is it true or false that the nine states were needed to ratify the constitutional?

Answer 1

no all 13 states were needed to ratify the constitution

if you look at the dates that each state signed it you will see that Rhode Island didn't ratify it but it passed any way. they joined the union a few months after we became a country.

Answer 2

It's true. The experience of requiring all 13 states to ratify the Articles of Confederation convinced the framers to favor a more practicable procedure. Therefore, at the start of the Constitutional ratification phase, all states agreed that the Constitution would be officially adopted with a 2/3 majority vote (nine states). Unfortunately it turned out to be not quite as simple as they'd hoped.

Congress approved the Constitution on September 17, 1787, and sent a copy to each state. Delaware ratified it first, less than three months later. Others approved it during the subsequent months; the eighth state, South Carolina, ratified it on May 23, 1788.

But now it was stuck. The five remaining states debated withholding ratification largely because the document lacked a Bill of Rights.

The sharply divided Continental Congress had wrestled with this issue for many months, but in that time, James Madison (having initially believed a written enumeration of Natural Rights unnecessary because the Constitution didn't grant the authority to violate those rights) was convinced to change his mind and promised to draft a list of Amendments. That promise alone changed enough votes to approve ratification in New Hampshire, followed rapidly by Virginia and New York. North Carolina and Rhode Island flatly refused until they received the proposed Amendments in hand.

New Hampshire thus became the ninth state to ratify the United States Constitution. It officially went into effect that same day: June 21, 1788. True to their word, when they received the proposed Bill of Rights over a year later, North Carolina (November 21, 1789) and Rhode Island (May 29, 1790) formally accepted it. Each state ratified the Bill of Rights shortly thereafter.

It's interesting to note that George Washington had already been elected President before North Carolina consented to the Constitution - and served a whole month before Rhode Island agreed to it! The whole ratification process for the Bill of Rights took place during his first term.