Many American states conduct special observances on the date that they entered the Union under our Constitution. Rhode Island does not. Is that reluctance because of embarrassment over the fact that we were the last of the 13 original states to ratify the Constitution and accept the new union?

Back in the years 1987 through 1991, I served as the volunteer chairman of the state’s foundation for the celebration of the bicentennial of the Constitution and our Bill of Rights. May 29, 1990, Rhode Island’s bicentennial of its ratification of the Constitution – our Statehood Day – was a key aspect of that celebration. It was a day of great fanfare culminating in a Statehood Dinner at Newport’s Rosecliff Mansion co-chaired by my wife Gail.

As the main speaker of that event, I urged Rhode Islanders to make May 29 the date of an annual statehood observance. That appeal was disregarded. Seventeen years later, in 2007, when I was Patriotic Speaker at Bristol’s Fourth of July celebration, I renewed that appeal. Again, my exhortation was ignored.

In 2013, when Dr. John Kaminski and I finished and published a four-volume edition of all documents pertaining to Rhode Island’s ratification of the Constitution and presented a set to the Supreme Court at a special event, I asked that body to formally observe Statehood Day on an annual basis. That request became one of the few times in my many Supreme Court appearances that I did not receive a favorable response.

Finally, in 2015, when I became founding president of the Heritage Harbor Foundation, a grant-giving, project implementing cultural organization, I was in a position not only to suggest but also to sponsor Rhode Island’s Statehood Day. Its initial observance was held on May 29, 2018, at Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet with the assistance of the Pawtuxet Rangers Militia and its Colonel Ron Barnes as part of the Gaspee Days celebration.  I was the inaugural speaker, followed in 2019 by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon Wood and in 2020 by public historian Russell DeSimone.

Alas, the onset of Covid and the reluctance of the Gaspee Days’ Committee to include the observance in their annual calendar of events brought that observance to an end.

Although Rhode Island was the only state to boycott the 1787 Federal Convention that framed the Constitution, Rhode Island has no reason for embarrassment. Also, no apology is necessary for ignoring the directive of the Founding Fathers that required ratification to be approved by a convention called for that purpose. Initially, Rhode Island defiantly conducted a popular referendum. In the March, 1788 balloting, with the supporters of ratification, called Federalists, boycotting that procedure, the proposed basic law was rejected by a margin of 2,714 to 238! The exasperated Founders called us Rogues’ Island.

Under pressure from the new federal government, Rhode Island finally called a ratifying convention in January, 1790. It met in March at South Kingstown and adjourned without approving the Constitution, but it offered 36 amendments to that document.

A second session of that convention met in May with Providence threatening to secede from the state if approval did not occur. On May 29, the convention delegates yielded to that threat and to national tariff pressure, ratifying the Constitution by a vote of 34 to 32 – the narrowest margin of any state.

There were many reasons for Rhode Island’s reluctance to ratify – too many for discussion here. However, among the ideological and more noble reasons were the following: Rhode Island’s long tradition of democratic local control could be threatened; the original Constitution lacked a Bill of Rights to protect individual liberties, especially what Roger Williams called “soul liberty”; and the Constitution in three of its clauses compromised with the institution of slavery.

In view of the subsequent development of our nation, Rhode Island’s reluctance has been largely vindicated, so our Statehood Day should be a day of public pride rather than ignored. In fact, considering the basis of Rhode Island’s opposition to the original Constitution -– resistance to an overweening and unrestrained central government; concern for the sovereignty and integrity of the states in the spirit of true federalism; solicitude for individual liberty, especially religious freedom; opposition to slavery and the incidents of servitude; and concern for democratic participation in the constitution-making process via a popular referendum -– perhaps Americans might ask not why it took Rogues’ Island so long to join the Union, but rather, why it took the Union so long to join Rhode Island.

Patrick T. Conley is president of the Heritage Harbor Foundation.