This scene depicts the North Carolina Constitutional Convention, which met at Hillsborough in July 1788. In St. Matthews Church, 270 elected delegates debated whether to ratify the proposed U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution, drafted in Philadelphia in 1787, not only established the United States as a nation but also served as an attempt to increase Congress’s control over the new national budget. At the North Carolina Constitutional Convention, the majority of delegates favored states’ rights over a strong federal government, leading the assembly to vote 184-84 to neither accept nor reject the proposed Constitution.
A year later, in Fayetteville, North Carolina delegates reconvened in a second attempt at ratification. Pleased by the addition of a Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments which guarantee personal freedoms, delegates voted 194-77 to ratify the U.S. Constitution. North Carolina was the 12th of 13 colonies to ratify the document.